Faculty and staff from across UW–Madison’s School of Education are routinely quoted or make their voices heard in newspapers, magazines, and online news media outlets. Similarly, these experts are often interviewed and showcased on a range of local, national, and international podcasts, and radio and television news reports. For the latest examples, visit our in the news archives.
Eckes offers insight on teachers’ free speech to Washington Post
School of Education faculty member Suzanne Eckes offered her expertise on educators’ free speech rights to a recent story in The Washington Post.
The story focused on an April decision by the Florida Board of Education forbidding the teaching of gender identity and sexuality in K-12 public schools. The story notes the new rule builds on a 2022 law that barred classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade.
Some have raised concerns about the new rule having a chilling effect on educators’ speech in the classroom.
In the story, Eckes, who is the Susan S. Engeleiter Chair in Education Law, Policy, and Practice in the School of Education’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis, pointed out freedom of speech for public school teachers is limited while they’re in class.
“Federal courts have explained that teachers are required to follow the approved curriculum,” Eckes said.
Read the entire Washington Post article here.
Bullock speaks with NPR about new AP African American Studies course option
UW–Madison’s Erika Bullock, an associate professor in the School of Education’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction, spoke to NPR about the new AP African American Studies course, just a few days before the College Board introduced its official framework on Feb. 1.
Golda Meir High School, in downtown Milwaukee, is one of few schools across the country that is offering a pilot version of the new course, which has received backlash from various groups and lawmakers.
In an interview with NPR on Jan. 25, Bullock discussed the importance of an AP African American Studies course for young Black and Brown students in the context of Golda Meir High School.
“It is possible as a Black student to go through an entire K-12 experience and not read a book by a Black author, or not experience a Black teacher, or not understand how Black people around the world have contributed to things like mathematics and science,” Bullock says.
Listen to the full NPR interview.
Enright interviewed in Washington Post about forgiveness research
The Washington Post highlighted the expertise of UW–Madison’s Robert Enright, a professor in the School of Education’s Department of Educational Psychology, in a story that is headlined, “Moving lessons on forgiveness out of religious spaces and into schools.”
Enright is considered to be one of the founders of the scientific study of forgiveness and last year was lauded as a “game changer” in modern psychology by the American Psychological Association.
The Washington Post explains that Enright is the leader of a team of researchers “who have been developing practical methods for helping young people cultivate forgiveness for more than three decades.” The team’s “workbooks and teacher training programs have been shared with thousands of educators worldwide.”
Enright and his fellow researchers are hoping to normalize the teaching of forgiveness in schools — widening its scope beyond religious settings.
“Enright says that within his field, the idea of teaching forgiveness in nonreligious settings was not immediately accepted,” notes the story.
“When he and his colleagues began looking into forgiveness in the mid-1980s, a religious stigma attached to the subject made it difficult to get funding for research. But resistance from the scientific community gradually faded away, Enright said, as the benefits of forgiveness were empirically demonstrated. There are now well over a thousand scientific papers on the psychological impact of practicing forgiveness, Enright said.”
Check out the full story to learn more about Enright’s research and findings.
Abdu’Allah’s ‘Blu³eprint’ featured in Printmaking Today
Faisal Abdu’Allah’s “Blu³eprint” sculpture, which stands outside of the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMoCA) on State Street in Madison, was highlighted in the UK-based journal Printmaking Today.
Abdu’Allah is a professor with the School of Education’s Art Department. He also holds the Chazen Family Distinguished Chair in Art, and is the associate dean of the arts in the School of Education.In addition to being an internationally acclaimed artist, Abdu’Allah is a trained barber. “Blu³eprint” is a nearly seven-foot sculpture of Abdu’Allah himself, seated in a barber’s chair. Computer-operated robots carved the sculpture out of Indiana limestone at Quarra Stone Company in Madison, and it was hand-finished by Italian stone carver Martin Foot.
“For Abdu’Allah, the barber shop is a place of renewal and solidarity for the Black community — and by putting himself in the chair he points to the roles of both artist and barber as storytellers and community builders,” explains the Printmaking Today feature.The “u³” in the title of the piece refers to the Zulu word Ubuntu, which means “I am because we are” — a statement of interconnected humanity that underpins Abdu’Allah’s work.
Abdu’Allah says he sees the sculpture as a counter-monument to the 1909 sculpture of Abraham Lincoln that sits atop Bascom Hill on the UW–Madison campus. Students have called for its removal as Lincoln believed in white racial superiority.
“My philosophy is that artists have always been the shapers of social consciousness and for me this piece illustrates that,” says Abdu’Allah about his work.“Blu³eprint” was installed as the initial phase in Abdu’Allah’s solo exhibition, “DARK MATTER,” at MMOCA. The exhibition, which explores personal identity, cultural representation, and self-determination, is on view until Apr. 2.
WCER researcher makes news on school lunches
Andrew Ruis, a WCER research scientist and expert on the history of school lunches, has done many interviews and media consults this year as the topic has been often in the news.
Most recently, he was featured in “Making All School Lunches Free in NC Will Cut Hunger, Stigma and Paperwork,” on March 19, in the News & Observer, and on March 2, in “America’s School Lunch Crisis,” by Vox.
His string of media hits continues with “What Stricter USDA Standards Would Mean for School Meals,” an episode of Wisconsin Public Radio’s “Central Time” on which Ruis was the sole guest on Feb. 20.
Before that, Ruis contributed to “What’s Wrong with School Lunch in the U.S.?” a Jan. 3 episode of the YouTube show, “Eat This with Yara,” an Al Jazeera-affiliated program.
And on the ongoing 2023 investigative podcast from LWC Studios, “Left Over: How Corporations and Politicians Are Milking the American School Lunch,” Ruis contributed to episode 2, “The Paradox of Plenty amid Hunger.”
Ruis is also an author — he wrote the book “Eating to Learn, Learning to Eat: The Origins of School Lunch in the United States,” published in 2017.
No telling which media outlet might tap Ruis next, but if history is any guide, it won’t be long.
CCBC spotlighted twice in Publishers Weekly magazine
UW–Madison’s Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) was highlighted in May and again in June by Publishers Weekly (PW), which “offers feature articles and news on all aspects of the book business, bestsellers lists in a number of categories, and industry statistics.”
Administratively housed in the School of Education and also supported by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, the CCBC serves as a resource to Wisconsin schools, teachers, librarians, and others interested in children’s and young adult literature. The center’s team of librarians works to: provide expertise in contemporary children’s and young adult literature; increase diversity in children’s and young adult literature; provide intellectual freedom services to schools and public libraries; and recommend outstanding books for children and teenagers.
The article in May looks at how the CCBC has changed through the years, expanding its mission to track the number of books published by and about BIPOC people. Through its Diversity Statistics, the center has found that diversity in children’s books has increased significantly since the program’s start in 1985.
The article notes that “there is more representation of intersectional identities,” as well.
CCBC director Tessa Michaelson Schmidt says: “It’s not just about one ‘fill-in-the-blank’ kid; it’s about multiple primary characters having intersectional identities. Someone might be a Latina who is gay and also has a learning disability — and her best friend is white, Jewish, and nonbinary. There’s more nuance in terms of representation, and we’re seeing an increased authenticity of what intersectional lives look like and how they’re portrayed in children’s books.”
In June, CCBC published its 2022 Diversity Statistics, which were also highlighted by PW. This article looks at the CCBC’s 2022 findings, and includes additional statements from Schmidt. The CCBC found that diversity among the books the center received almost doubled in some areas, which is “encouraging,” according to Schmidt.
“If this trend continues, we may soon see a world in which publishing for children and teens consistently reflects the rich diversity of perspectives and experiences within and across race and culture,” Schmidt concludes.