Education

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New Zealand: On the job learning for new teachers a disservice to them and students

Noticias

Oceania/ New Zealand/ 12.02.2019/ Source: www.stuff.co.nz.

I was very excited to see the outcomes of Bali Haque’s Tomorrow’s Schools Review. It is insightful, clear, and I think, largely correct. I hope we have the courage to implement the review’s recommendations – all bar one.

I don’t believe that school-based teacher preparation pathways will improve the quality of new teachers, and believe it will have a raft of unfortunate consequences for schools and their learners.

Preparing teachers has always been a tricky business. Between 1920 and 2018 there has been a review, a White Paper, a Green Paper, consultation, an advisory committee or report to government on New Zealand’s teacher education  about every 10 years. This despite the shift of teacher education over this period from school-based preparation to training colleges and colleges of education, to universities and private providers.

These reports have the same themes: selection and recruitment, what the content of teacher education should be, where it should be taught, and what the roles of the providers and the profession are in preparing teachers; all similar concerns to those raised by the Tomorrow’s Schools Review.

So is New Zealand particularly bad at teacher preparation? Actually, no. If we look internationally, exactly the same concerns predominate in English-speaking countries around the world. Essentially it comes down to whether you think teaching is a profession or not.

Professions are defined by having an established body of knowledge that is not held by the general population, and therefore require a period of advanced education before they can be practised. Because we’ve all experienced teaching at school in a way that most of us haven’t been exposed to law, accountancy or medicine, some people think there’s not much to it; that it’s basically managing children, a practical «craft» best learned on the job.

If teaching is a profession, advanced preparation is appropriate. If it’s a craft, it could be learned by doing. In practice, of course, it’s both; a highly intellectual activity, characterised by rapid high-stakes decision-making, and a practical task with routines and strategies that need to be mastered.

So which is the right way in: learn the professional knowledge, then practise the strategies, or learn the strategies and then gain the knowledge? I believe it’s a clever combination of the two, and the institutions best placed to develop it are not schools.

But why not? It’s tempting logic, followed by England in  its «School Direct» reform (an employment-based route into teaching). It’s had some successes, but hasn’t solved the variability and supply issues the New Zealand Taskforce highlights.

And a consequence has been the disestablishment of teacher education programmes in higher education, resulting in a loss of expertise in teaching and teacher preparation from the system. Just as the schools discover how hard teacher preparation is, the number of people who could help them diminishes.

Successful schools are good at teaching students. It turns out that teaching adults how to be teachers is actually another task entirely. Putting unprepared people in front of children to «learn as they go» clearly disadvantages those children, and trying to avoid this by preparing, mentoring and evaluating prospective teachers in schools is a serious challenge.

Do we want our schools to be both schools for students and teacher education institutions?

One of the reasons school-based routes appeal is because prospective teachers are paid.

Creating long, unpaid internships as part of teacher preparation reduces the number who can afford to prepare and reduces the diversity of the workforce. Paying people to become teachers is a great idea, we used to do it, but it doesn’t mean that preparation should be led by schools.

I think schools should play a larger role in teacher preparation and be rewarded for doing so. I don’t think, however, that they should be given the whole responsibility because they have another, extremely important, job to do – teaching their students.

In a post-Tomorrow’s School Review system, where supports like advisory services and education hubs are restored, why not retain a highly skilled teacher educator service that is seen as part of the profession, and works closely with schools to provide teacher preparation?

Rather than creating a dual pathway, let’s use all the resources we have to provide quality graduates for New Zealand’s schools.

Source of the notice: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/110510328/on-the-job-learning-for-new-teachers-a-disservice-to-them-and-students

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Dreams of the daughters: how a school in Zambia is tackling education for girls

Reseñas

By: Julia Rampen. 

George Mumbi lives in rural northern Zambia, where umbrella-like trees cast shadows on the red earth and there are few roads. The unusual thing about George is that he sent his daughter to secondary school. In Zambia, high schools charge fees, and in George’s community of subsistence farmers most families plough what money they have into educating their sons. But George’s daughter was among those teenage girls who set off from their homes in the bush and began the long journey to boarding school.

Parents in rural districts often prefer their children to live on campus, rather than walk several hours a day or rent alone near the school. They have less control over the journey to boarding school itself. In Kasama, a city in northern Zambia, trains packed with students can be delayed for hours or even overnight. It was on one of these journeys to school that George’s daughter became pregnant. “That’s why she dropped out of school,” he explained, through a translator.

“If you educate a woman, you educate a nation.” In the past two decades, this Ghanaian proverb has become the blueprint for international aid. The commitment to girls’ primary education was enshrined in the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. The UK’s Department for International Development runs the largest global fund dedicated to girls’ education. The charity Campaign for Female Education has produced research showing that for every year a girl is educated at secondary level, her earnings go up, her chances of contracting HIV go down and she will marry later. And if donors are still not persuaded, there’s the promise that she will “resist gender-based violence and discrimination, and change her community from within”.

The message is an irresistible blend of pragmatism and feminism. But while in Zambia most girls receive a basic education, fewer than half go on to secondary school. The biggest issue is fees. But even when this obstacle is removed, there are still additional challenges for girls.

I recently visited Peas Kampinda Secondary School, a short drive outside the sleepy town of Kasama. The school is the result of a partnership between the educational charity Peas (Promoting Equality in African Schools) and the Zambian government. When parents in the local area heard that there was to be a free high school, which would also serve lunch, the prospect sounded so good that they worried there was a catch.

At Peas Kampinda, girls are treated equally. The student body is 51 per cent female, including a cohort who board on campus. But nevertheless, teachers at Peas are aware that expectations are different at home. One girl used to turn up late, while her brother appeared on time. “She was given extra housework compared to the boy,” said Chola Kunda, one of the school’s female teachers, smartly dressed in a black skirt, white blouse and earrings. “After talking to the parents, the situation has changed. That girl is now coming to school on time.” Not only that, but the girl’s parents now ask the brother to clean the house as well. “There’s gender equality in the home,” Chola told me.

Girls who rent rooms nearby face a different kind of challenge: stigma from the locals. “They perceive them as prostitutes,” Chola said. Again, the school intervened, holding meetings with the community to encourage acceptance of the girls.

A girl’s future is even more likely to be set off kilter through teenage pregnancy. At Kampinda, during a student debate, I watched teenage girls stand up in front of a hundred of their peers and argue against sex education in schools. “When a person starts learning about sex, they are going to be concentrating on that subject,” one girl railed. Both sides, though, seemed passionate about the same issue: preventing teenage pregnancies. “No wonder we have poverty in our country,” one defender of sex education lamented. “Because of early marriages and teen pregnancies.”

Zambia is a deeply Christian country, and it is rare to see a school or municipal building that lacks a framed portrait of Jesus. This makes it harder to carry out simple intitiatives such as distributing contraceptives. Legal abortion is difficult to access, and Claire Albrecht, a local aid worker, has encountered many girls who have turned to traditional medicine rather than drop out of school. But such methods are risky. “There was a girl in a village where we stayed. It was her third time, and she died.”

Schools such as Peas Kampinda have had success encouraging young mothers to return to education. But for some girls, dropping out seems the easy option. “I went to school when bullying was at its peak,” Chola recalled. It was an entrenched system that she described as “hell. A lot of people left school because of it.”

But Chola’s older sister was paying for the fees. Having frequently been pulled out of school herself to take care of her siblings, she urged Chola to stick with it. Now 32, Chola is a strong advocate of the Peas child protection policy. “A teacher in this school is very empowered and concerned about protecting children in school,” she said. There is also zero tolerance of corporal punishment.

In the playground at Kampinda, meanwhile, the girls in which so much hope is invested eat their lunch, laugh about boys and ask me questions. “I want to be a surgeon,” one said. “I want to be a lawyer,” another told me. “I want to be a pirate,” a third said with a smile. The girls, mostly boarders, are glad to be at a school where the older years can’t force them to do chores and the teachers won’t beat them up. They have dreams of travelling after school, to neighbouring countries, even to London. “There is a lot of housework [at home], so it’s better we stay here,” said Patience Kabwe, one of the boarders. “We don’t have much time to do that – it’s just half an hour of sweeping. Most of the time we spend studying.”

Source of the notice: https://www.newstatesman.com/world/africa/2019/01/dreams-daughters-how-school-zambia-tackling-education-girls

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How To Improve India’s Education System

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Asia/ India/ 12.02.2019/ Source: www.businessworld.in.

In his book Ignited Minds (2002),  A.P.J. Abdul Kalam wrote, “The way to development is through purposeful activity. The young especially have to be guided properly, so that their lives find proper direction and their creativity is allowed to flower. To facilitate this certain educational reforms must be initiated.” It is true, along the years, several changes have been introduced at all levels of education. Yet where does the Indian education system stand today? Has it benefitted, has it regressed and what is the course for the future?

The editors of  Education At The Crossroads’ have presented a varied collection of papers by intellectuals well known in their field, each opening interesting windows. The articles provide a deep insight into the education scenario afflicting institutions today. Any policy maker having an intent to improve the education system or even to understand the realities of it must read the articles presented. The book will also be a good read for anyone interested in the various facets of higher education in terms of policy, implementation, privatization, RTE etc. It initiates the reader who can then advance analyse for themselves. That’s why I use the words ‘windows’. All the authors have been part of esteemed research institution or have headed prominent institutions.

The essay ‘Why Educate’ introduces the narration well. The fundamental question raised by Romila Thapar is, ‘Have we seriously addressed the question of what constitutes education and enquires as to what needs to change to ensure its relevance?’ The question leads one to introspect the conditions afflicting our education system. If the educational policy has to get better results, it is the primary and secondary schooling that needs  improvement, writes Romila Thapar.

Jyotsna Jha’s ‘Private Education India Limited’ brings to the fore the plethora of issues affecting private education at the school level. Her statement that education is increasingly becoming like other industries in which production is increasingly deterritorialised, and parts are procured in bits and assembled by a global firm at high cost hits home a hard reality.

Pushpa Sundar’s ‘The Gift of Knowledge Philanthropy and Higher Education’ reminds us of the enormous contribution private philanthropy has made in Indian education. The article traces the change in private philanthropy over the years and how there is ‘trouble in distinguishing real philanthropic activity from masked profit making’.  Majumdar Mukherjee’s article studies the effects of privatisation in terms of the effect on household expenditures.

Articles discussing diverse scenarios like the role of parenting, socio-economic conditions and gender biases on the educational development of children give an understanding of  how deeply all these factors are interrelated.  Where schools and teachers have understood the home situations of the wards and given due flexibility to accommodate it, there has been better retention of the wards. Issues relating to adolescent girls, sexual harassment are put forth well in ‘Drawing Pictures: A review on the policy and action on adolescent girls’ and ‘A Silent Revolution? Gender, Sexual Harassment and the Democratization of Higher Education’.

While a  majority of the essays reflect the poor scenario of India’s education system mainly stemming due to inflexibility in policy, state meddling, dwindling autonomy and sheer apathy that plagues our system, there are some that offer a refreshing insight into certain other aspects. For instance Manoj Kumar emphasises on teaching poetry in schools. His analysis in ‘The Making of the Hindi Literary Canon and Literary Common Sense’ is an eye opener. Similarly, Indira Chowdhary’s discussion ‘How oral histories help us understand institutional memory’, gives a fascinating insight on the importance of oral narratives.

The book makes a thought provoking read not only for the informed but also for those trying to simply understand the relationship between society, government and institutions.

Source of the notice: http://www.businessworld.in/article/How-To-Improve-India-s-Education-System/12-02-2019-167097/

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Humanitarian Action for Children 2019 – Mauritania

Documentos

By: reliefweb.int. 

Total people in need: 258,978

Total children (<18) in need: 224,978

Total people to be reached: 113,323

Total children to be reached: 77,089

2019 programme targets:

Nutrition

• 26,930 children under 5 years suffering from SAM admitted for treatment

• 16,234 pregnant and lactating women reached with an integrated package of IYCF services

Health

• 2,846 children aged 6 to 59 months with common childhood diseases reached with appropriate and integrated management of childhood illness services

WASH

• 13,465 children under treatment for SAM accessing safe water for drinking, cooking and hygiene through housewater treatment

• 6,500 children accessing and using appropriate sanitation and hygiene facilities in health and nutrition centres and schools in refugee camps, host communities and villages with high SAM burdens

Child protection

• 8,500 refugee and host community children reached with psychosocial support

• 150 survivors of sexual and genderbased violence reached with gender-based violence response interventions

Education

• 17,000 school-aged boys and girls (3 to 17 years) in the refugee camp and host community affected by humanitarian situations receiving learning materials

• 4,950 out-of-school boys and girls aged 3 to 17 years accessing education

Mauritania is experiencing recurrent cycles of drought that are severely affecting the nutritional health of children. For the second year running, irregular rainfall has negatively impacted crops and pastures, eroding household resilience and capacities to absorb shocks. Over 130,000 children, including nearly 32,000 children with severe acute malnutrition (SAM), and 31,000 pregnant and lactating women, will require nutritional care and treatment in 2019. Twenty-three of Mauritania’s 55 districts are currently experiencing a nutrition emergency,2 and account for three quarters of the country’s total SAM caseload. Only 47 per cent of the populations of these districts have access to drinking water, compared with the national average of 64 per cent.4 Poor hygiene and sanitation practices, high levels of diarrhoea and low vaccination rates are aggravating factors. Given the protracted emergency and deteriorating security situation in the Sahel, over 57,000 Malian refugees—a 10 per cent increase from 2017—60 per cent of whom are children, require access to basic services, including safe water, health care, education and protection. Of the 29,485 school-aged refugee children (3 to 17 years) in the M’Berra refugee camp, only 8,217 (6 to 17 years) have access to learning opportunities.7 In host communities, 12,000 children are out of school.

2019-HAC-Mauritania

Source of the document: https://reliefweb.int/report/mauritania/humanitarian-action-children-2019-mauritania

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Schools staff crisis looms as austerity hits teachers’ pay

Michael Savage

By: Michael Savage. 

Recruitment slumps as figures show a 10% fall in salaries since 2003

Ministers have conceded that teachers’ pay has fallen by thousands of pounds a year since the public spending austerity drive began, amid warnings of a “looming crisis” in attracting and retaining new staff.

Classroom pay has fallen by more than £4,000 a year since 2010 in real terms, according to a government assessment. Damian Hinds, the education secretary, warned that only a 2% increase can be expected for the next academic year.

The admission comes in the Department for Education’s official submission to the School Teachers’ Review Body, which makes recommendations on pay deals. It states that pay is also lower than it was 15 years ago in real terms. “From 2002-03 to 2017-18, classroom teacher median salaries have seen a drop of 10% and overall teacher median salaries of 11% in real terms,” it says. It argues that the fall was smaller than that suffered by private sector graduates.

Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said: “We welcome the DfE’s admission that teachers’ pay has fallen so far in real terms. It is no good Damian Hinds trying to argue that this is the same for private sector jobs – those figures reflect the many graduates forced into low-paid, part-time, semi-casual jobs, whereas we are talking about the pay rates being offered to those joining a profession.”

The number of secondary school pupils is forecast to rise by 15% during the next decade. However, the government missed its recruitment targets for trainees for the past six years, with the biggest shortfalls in key subjects like maths, modern foreign languages and physics. Ministers have responded with a series of measures designed to ease the pressures with job shares, more support for new staff and a reduction in paperwork.

James Zuccollo, from the Education Policy Institute, said there was evidence that “targeted pay increases” could greatly reduce the looming crisis. “Recent research suggests a 5% pay supplement for early-career science and maths teachers could have avoided the increased shortages since 2010, for instance,” he said.

“The government’s new bursary scheme for early-career teachers may help to tackle acute retention problems in shortage subjects and disadvantaged parts of the country. But, unless it is applied immediately to existing teachers, it is likely to be a few years before we see any improvements to exit rates.”

Hinds has announced that English schools will no longer be punished for failing to meet government standard on tests, in an attempt to release teachers from the stress of results and stop schools with challenging pupils from being punished. He also wants to cut down on marking, data collection and lesson planning.

However, Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, said years of cuts had led to teachers being “thousands of pounds a year worse off. Across our schools we are seeing the result in the crisis in teacher recruitment and retention. Teacher recruitment targets have been missed year after year, with more teachers leaving the profession than joining. In response to this crisis, the government will give the majority of teachers another real-terms pay cut.”

Labour is pledging to end the public sector pay cap with additional, ring-fenced funding.

School leaders have been angered by a suggestion last week that they will have to fund this year’s pay increase from their existing budget, without extra help from the government. A note from the department warned: “A pay increase for teachers of 2%, in line with forecast inflation, is affordable within the overall funding available to schools for 2019 to 2020, without placing further pressure on school budgets.”

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “Last summer saw the biggest teacher pay rise in almost 10 years, worth between £800 and £1,366 for classroom teachers and supported by a £508m government grant. In addition to an annual pay award, many teachers also receive increases from promotions and responsibility allowances.

“Whilst we know pay is an important issue for teachers, there are also other factors which can affect recruitment and retention. That is why in January we unveiled the first ever integrated recruitment and retention strategy in England, which will provide teachers with more early careers support and opportunities for flexible and part-time working. The strategy also builds on the work we have done to support school leaders to strip away unnecessary workload.”

Source or the article: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/feb/09/teacher-pay-down-real-terms-since-2003

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Japanese city to use AI to predict seriousness of school bullying

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Asia/ Japan/ 11.02.2019/ Source: japantoday.com.

A western Japan city said Friday it plans to use artificial intelligence to predict the seriousness of suspected school bullying cases, in what will be the first such analysis by a municipality in the country.

«Through an AI theoretical analysis of past data, we will be able to properly respond to cases without just relying on teachers’ past experiences,» Otsu Mayor Naomi Koshi said regarding the planned analysis beginning from the next fiscal year starting April.

AI will be used to analyze 9,000 suspected bullying cases reported by elementary and junior high schools in the city over the six years through fiscal 2018. It will examine the school grade and gender of the suspected victims and perpetrators as well as when and where the incidents occurred.

Statistical analysis of the data is expected to help local authorities and teachers to identify forms of bullying that tend to escalate in seriousness and require particular attention, said the Otsu city education board in Shiga Prefecture.

The AI analysis will also look at other factors, such as school absenteeism and academic achievement, and the findings will be compiled into a report for use by teachers and in training seminars.

«Bullying may start from low-level friction in relationships but can get worse day by day. It is important to know which cases have a tendency to become serious,» an official of the education board said.

The Otsu city education board came under fire over the handling of a bullying case involving a 13-year-old junior high school student, who jumped to his death from the condominium building where he lived in 2011.

The board initially found no connection between the suicide and bullying, but some students were later found to have stated in a school survey that the boy was told to «practice killing himself.» An independent committee set up by the Otsu city government attributed the suicide to bullying in a report issued in 2013.

The case led Japan to enact a law the same year obliging schools to set guidelines to prevent bullying. In Otsu, schools are required to report all possible bullying cases to the city education board within 24 hours.

Elementary, junior and senior high schools in Japan reported more than 410,000 cases of bullying in fiscal 2017. Ten of the 250 students who committed suicide had been bullied at school, according to education ministry data.

Source of the notice: https://japantoday.com/category/national/japanese-city-to-use-ai-to-predict-seriousness-of-school-bullying

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Denver teachers set to strike over better pay and working conditions

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North America/ Estados Unidos/ 11.02.2019/ By: Michael Sainato/ Source: www.theguardian.com.

Colorado city educators would be the latest in a broad wave of strikes and protests across the country battling for funding

School teachers in Denver, Colorado, are set to strike on Monday in the latest of a wave of actions that has swept the sector in the past year as educators battle for better pay and working conditions.

In Denver, teacher salaries have been steadily decreasing, leading to high turnover in the district. Teachers are forced to financially rely on bonuses and incentives beyond their control as part of a system called ProComp, first enacted in 2005.

“The bonuses and the amounts change every year. This has led to a problem where teacher salaries are different every year, and teachers, including myself, have been getting paid less every year,” said Michelle Garrison, a teacher at Farrell B Howell Early Childhood Education-8th grade school “You don’t ever get a paycheck that’s the same. It makes it hard for budgeting.”

Tanessa Wilson, a teacher at John H Amesse Elementary in Denver cited an example that teachers at her school missed out on a $1,500 bonus this year because students who receive free and reduced lunches decreased by 0.2%.

“These incentives are based on factors that are out of our control and we don’t think that is fair,” said Wilson.

Some 93% of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association membership voted to authorize a strike last month in the midst of new contract negotiations.

“The current model isn’t working for teachers, it isn’t working for students,” said Nik Arnoldi, a teacher at Escalante-Biggs Academy.

Denver Public Schools officials responded to the strike vote by formally requesting the state of Colorado to intervene to avoid a strike, but the state declined.

“To our teachers: We want and need you in our classrooms,” said Susana Cordova, district superintendent, in a statement. “We want to work to reach an agreement and we welcome support from Governor [Jared] Polis and his administration to bring us both back to negotiate.”

A spokesperson for the district added: “The school district is committed to keeping schools open and on normal schedules during a strike to support our students and their education.”

Teachers in Oakland and Sacramento in California are also potentially heading toward strikes in coming weeks as part of a broader wave of actions that occurred in several states and cities in 2018. Those strikes led to significant victories for teachers in Oklahoma, West Virginia, Arizona, and, most recently, Los Angeles.

The American Federation of Teachers president, Randi Weingarten, said these walkouts are part of a broader trend of teachers combatting decade-long systematic funding problems in public education.

“No teacher wants to go on strike, but these actions are a direct response to the austerity politics that have left public schools low on the budget priority list in far too many states,” said Weingarten. “Our communities have made clear that they want safe, strong public schools, where kids can learn and where teachers can teach. When educators walk out, they’re doing it to get what their kids need, and they’re using the power of their collective voices to fight for the resources that are necessary to make schools better.”

The decline in teacher pay has been a significant public policy issue highlighted in these waves of strikes and protests. A report published by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) in September 2018 found teacher pay has eroded since the mid-1990’s, with teacher pay penalties – the percentage by which public school teachers are paid less than comparable workers – growing to 18.7% in 2017.

Several states with the highest teacher pay penalties – Arizona, Virginia, Colorado, and Oklahoma – saw teacher walkouts and protests highlighting this increasing pay gap.

“Across the US, teachers and entire communities are saying enough is enough,” said Dr Sylvia Allegretto, co-chair of the Center on Wage and Employment Dynamics at UC Berkeley and lead author of the EPI report.

In Sacramento, teachers are still fighting for resources they won in a November 2017 contract with the Sacramento Unified school district. A strike was narrowly avoided when the teachers union and city reached a contract deal days before a scheduled walkout, but the teachers union says the district has ignored the contract.

“The contract we accomplished with the district not only dealt with economic issues but found resources to lower class sizes, add counselors, early intervention, school nurses, a lot of what they were working on in Los Angeles,” said David Fisher, president of the Sacramento City Teachers Association.

“Since then it’s been an issue with the implementation,” he added.

South of Sacramento, teachers in Oakland, California, voted to authorize a strike amid their contract negotiations. The Oakland Education Association announced on 4 February that 95% of union members voted to authorize a strike, which could occur anytime after 15 February.

“We are fighting for smaller class sizes, living wage, stopping school closures and more student support,” said Quinn Ranahan, a math teacher at Roots International Academy middle school, one of 24 schools in the Oakland Unified school district that are being considered for closure over the next five years.

A spokesperson for the district said in an email: “We are eager to come to an agreement with our teachers union, one that pays teachers what they deserve and that allows them to thrive in the expensive Bay Area. That being said, we have serious budgetary limitations, so we need to come to an agreement that is also sustainable for the district..”

Source of the notice: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/10/teacher-strikes-denver-education-salaries-funding

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