Education stories have dominated headlines over the past year, as a quick glance down this long, long list will show.
If you are participating in our new multimedia challenge, which invites students and educators to “show or tell us what high school is like in 2023,” we thought it might help to understand how The New York Times and other media have looked at the issues and questions facing secondary education.
Below, over 75 news, feature stories and Opinion pieces about school, teaching, learning and teenage life that have appeared across sections of NYTimes.com over the last year. They are free to read, as are all Times pieces linked from The Learning Network — as long as you access them from our site. We will continue to update this collection until the contest ends on Oct. 4.
Where should you begin? We recommend the wonderful teen-created piece “What Grown-Ups Don’t Understand About School,” published in September 2022.
Then, as you scroll through the rest, you might choose pieces on topics that especially interest you and ask yourself …
What, if anything, seems to be missing? Is there information or context that could have made this piece stronger?
How could my background, knowledge or perspective make me an authority on this topic? What would I like to say about it?
What other stories about my experiences in school do these pieces remind me that I could tell?
For Students
A selection of articles, podcasts and Opinion essays on a variety of aspects of the high school experience
The Role of School
What is school for?
What Grown-Ups Don’t Understand About School
In September of 2022, The New York Times Opinion section asked a number of experts the question, What is school really for? Our favorite answer: this one by the students at Oakland’s Fremont High, who answered with their cameras.
Before you read anything else, we hope you’ll take a look at their work. We have also published a related lesson plan
Politics and Law
What issues, small or large, has your school community recently confronted?
Health
What roles do your physical and mental health play in your learning?
Pandemic Effects
How have the pandemic years affected your relationship to school?
Test Scores
What do you think the results of standardized tests tell us about learning? What is your relationship with these kinds of tests?
Generative Artificial Intelligence
How have you and your teachers and school responded to the rise of generative artificial intelligence like ChatGPT? What does it mean for teaching and learning?
The College Process and Affirmative Action
What does the college process look like at your school? For you? How might the repeal of affirmative action affect that process?
School Shootings and Violence
How has violence, or the threat of it, shaped your educational experience?
School Buildings
What is your learning environment like? How has it affected your education?
What has your experience as an educator been like in recent years? What does the world not understand about what it is like to be a teacher right now?
(Note: Please keep in mind that for this challenge we consider any adult working in a secondary school an educator, and we would love to hear from you, whether you are a counselor, administrator, coach, librarian, maintenance worker, school secretary, chef or teacher.)
These 12 Teachers Don’t See Themselves as Superheroes
A Freewheeling 91-Year-Old Principal Retires
Librarians Are Meeting Younger Readers Where They Are: TikTok
Texas Revamps Houston Schools, Closing Libraries and Angering Parents
Florida Schools Try to Adapt to New Rules on Gender, Bathrooms and Pronouns
