To bolster academics, Philly schools turning to the outdoors – By Kristen A. Graham, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Robert Mitchell was 35 feet above the ground, suspended from harnesses and wires amid the tall trees of Wissahickon Valley Park, and he was terrified.

"I can't do this," said Mitchell, a ninth grader, shaking visibly.

Below him, a knot of his classmates from Penn Treaty High School — some of whom he knew a little, while others had been just faces in the hallway — encouraged him with shouts and claps to move forward on his Outward Bound ropes challenge. And from the tree to Mitchell's left came a voice strong and sure.

"I won't let you fall, bro," said Jose Naranjo-Betancourt, Mitchell's partner on the climb, tethered to him as they made their way up trees and across ropes together.

Increasingly, city students are having moments like these. The Philadelphia School District has doubled down on its partnership with Outward Bound's Philadelphia arm, spending up to $340,000 annually so students can climb tall trees, take nature walks, and complete physical challenges in one- and multi-day expeditions, all in the name of social and emotional learning.

Experts stress project-based learning for all-day kindergarten – By Jessica Campisi, Education Dive

As a former kindergarten teacher at a Title I school, Katie Benson said a majority of her students came from high-poverty households. So, when snack time rolled around, most didn’t have healthy options – or know about them.

“The kids didn’t know what are healthy foods or where to get them,” Benson, who now works at Ball State University in its early childhood, youth and family studies department, told a room of attendees at the annual National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) conference in Washington, D.C. “They didn’t know what these foods were called.”

At the time, Benson’s elementary school in Columbus, Indiana, was starting to infuse more project-based learning (PBL) into the curriculum. And after discovering her students’ unfamiliarity with healthy food options, Benson knew she had her classroom’s next project.

First, Benson had to figure out where the class stood on healthy food options. Together, the group made an “I wonder” chart, asking questions like, “Do we want to eat vegetables? What foods are healthy? Where do we get them?”

Food experts, including a local grocery store manager and a nutritionist, also spoke to the class about healthy food options and how to make them. A field trips to the store let kids pick out these foods themselves, and come presentation time, each group prepared their snacks for their classmates.

The Summer Pell Bump – By Paul Fain, Inside Higher Ed

An overwhelming majority of community colleges saw increased enrollments of Pell Grant recipients last summer, suggesting that the federal government's reinstatement of year-round Pell eligibility last year may be helping to stem overall enrollment declines in the two-year sector.

Just three years after its creation, the Obama administration, with the backing of the U.S. Congress, in 2012 eliminated summer Pell eligibility, meaning the ability for students to access two grants in a year to help pay for courses during the summer. Bipartisan concern about rising costs of year-round Pell -- $2 billion at the peak -- led to its demise.

But Congress and the Trump administration reinstated the program last year, after a strong push by community college leaders. The first year of that eligibility concluded at the end of June.

The American Association of Community Colleges conducted a national survey of its members to gauge the impact of year-round Pell's return. The survey yielded responses from 109 community colleges and statewide responses representing another 77 colleges, for a total of responding institutions that enroll 1.9 million students, or 34 percent of the sector’s total enrollment.

The survey’s results show year-round Pell has had a major impact. Almost 83 percent of responding colleges reported increases in Pell Grant recipient enrollments this past summer compared to the previous one. And half saw increases of 15 percent or more.

Voters Widely Support Public Schools. So Why Is It So Hard to Pay for Them? – By Dana Goldstein, The New York Times

If it were going to happen any year, it should have been this one. After a wave of teacher walkouts fired up people on both sides of the party line, the time seemed ripe for big investments in public schools.

In reality, the results for school funding after the midterm elections last week were mixed, and illustrate a paradox in how Americans view education.

Polls showed that the public supported the picketing teachers across the country who protested low pay and classroom funding. And a diverse group of candidates, Democratic and Republican, were elected after casting themselves as education champions. But many voters, particularly in conservative and swing states, were unwilling to open their wallets to send state tax dollars to educators and classrooms.

And in some states where education funding is among the lowest nationwide, voters approved ballot measures that will make it even harder to direct money to schools in the future.

“Taxes are just a very difficult conversation,” said Amie Baca-Oehlert, president of the Colorado Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union. Coloradans, after seeing teachers walk out in April over school funding, rejected a ballot initiative last week to pay for schools by raising corporate taxes and personal income taxes on those earning over $150,000 a year.

Those voters also elected a Democratic governor, Jared Polis, who supports sending more money to schools, and flipped control of the State Senate from red to blue. But legislators’ hands will be tied when it comes to raising revenue: Colorado requires all tax increases be approved directly by voters.