Weekly Update

_{Students practice with a mannequin simulating a patient at the Mt. San Antonio College campus in California. Credit: James Bernal for The Hechinger Report}

Nurses are in high demand. Why can’t nursing schools keep up?

Oscar Mateo dreamed of being an artist, but after he got leukemia when he was 20, his life plans abruptly changed. The compassionate nursing care he received while hospitalized touched him so much that he decided he wanted to provide the same for others.

That impulse led him to the registered nursing program at Mt. San Antonio College in the Los Angeles County suburb of Walnut. But getting there wasn’t easy, as he had to battle competition for limited seats in one of the highest-demand fields in higher education, a career offering purpose, plentiful jobs and potentially six-figure paychecks.

Mateo was rejected three times by Mt. SAC before winning admission. To burnish his resume and win a coveted seat, he earned certification as a nursing assistant and got work experience.

“It’s so competitive and stressful,” Mateo, now 30, said. “It definitely takes a toll on yourself.”

Mateo represents a paradox bedeviling the U.S. nursing landscape. There is enormous demand for nurses, as retirement or burnout push many from the field. Despite tens of thousands of students fighting to get into nursing programs, schools can’t accommodate that demand, for two major reasons: They can’t find enough faculty to teach classes and there is a dearth of the required hands-on training opportunities in hospitals and health care facilities.

COLUMN: Trump’s push for ‘patriotic’ education could further chill history instruction

High school history teacher Antoine Stroman says he wants his students to ask “the hard questions” — about slavery, Jim Crow, the murder of George Floyd and other painful episodes that have shaped the United States.

Now, Stroman worries that President Donald Trump’s push for “patriotic education” could complicate the direct, factual way he teaches such events. Last month, the president announced a plan to present American history that emphasizes “a unifying and uplifting portrayal of the nation’s founding ideals,” and inspires “a love of country.”

Stroman does not believe students at the magnet high school where he teaches in Philadelphia will buy this version, nor do many of the teachers I’ve spoken with. They say they are committed to honest accounts of the shameful events and painful eras that mark our nation’s history.

“As a teacher, you have to have some conversations about teaching slavery. It is hard,” Stroman told me. “Teaching the Holocaust is hard. I can’t not teach something because it is hurtful. My students will come in and ask questions, and you really have to make up your mind to say, ‘I can’t rain dance around this.’”

STUDENT VOICE: Learning to debate

The expense and time commitment means debating could become another private school-dominated space.

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