Eviction sets single mom on a quest to keep her kids in their schoolsView in browser [link removed]

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**In this week's edition:** Getting into college is becoming easier, with admissions offices trying to lure more applicants from a declining pool of 18-year-olds [link removed]. Eviction sets one single mom on a quest to keep her kids in their schools [link removed] [link removed] . Plus, a new kindergarten teacher in rural Missouri shares how extra support made a positive difference in his classroom [link removed].

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A student walks across the Pleasantville campus of Pace University in Pleasantville, New York. Credit: Emmanuel Guillén Lozano for The Hechinger Report

****Easier college admissions****

“The reality is, the overwhelming majority of universities are struggling to put butts in seats. And they need to do everything that they can to make it easier for students and their families,” said Kevin Krebs, founder of the college admission consulting firm HelloCollege.

This has never been as true as now, when the number of high school graduates entering higher education is about to begin a projected 15-year drop, starting with the class now being recruited. That’s on top of a 13 percent decline over the last 15 years.

Milianys Santiago, who lives in Hamilton, New Jersey, was waiting for a tour to start at Pace University as a video on repeat showed exuberant students and drone footage of the leafy, 200-acre grounds about 30 miles north of New York City, where the university also has a campus. 

Pace was one of 130 New York state colleges and universities that during October waived their application fees of from $50 to $90 per student, per school. That’s just one of the ways it’s trying to make admissions easier. 

“That was a little eye-opening, when we received that letter,” Sueane Goodreau of Ithaca, New York, said about the free application offer as she waited for a tour of Pace’s campus with her high school senior son, Will. Compared to when her older daughter applied to college just three years ago, said Goodreau, “it does feel a little more receptive.”

There was an even bigger incentive offered by Pace: Prospects such as Santiago and Goodreau who visit are promised an additional $1,000 a year of financial aid if they enroll.

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**This week's newsletter is sponsored by: **

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The EWA National Awards [link removed] for Education Reporting are open for submissions! Send in your best stories about children, students, families, educators or school communities. Compete for bragging rights in the newsroom – and win cash prizes between $750 and $5,000. (Reporters need not be on the education beat to enter.)

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****She wanted to keep her son in his school district. It was more challenging than it seemed****

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It was the worst summer in years. Sechita McNair’s family took no vacations. Her younger boys didn’t go to camp. Her van was repossessed, and her family nearly got evicted — again.

But she accomplished the one thing she wanted most. A few weeks before school started, McNair, an out-of-work film industry veteran barely getting by driving for Uber, signed a lease in the right Atlanta neighborhood so her eldest son could stay at his high school.

As she pulled up outside the school on the first day, Elias, 15, stepped onto the curb in his new basketball shoes and cargo pants. She inspected his face, noticed wax in his ears and grabbed a package of baby wipes from her rental car. She wasn’t about to let her eldest, with his young Denzel Washington looks, go to school looking “gross.”

He grimaced and broke away.

“No kiss? No hugs?” she called out.

Elias waved and kept walking. Just ahead of him, at least for the moment, sat something his mother had fought relentlessly for: a better education.

Last year, McNair and her three kids were evicted from their beloved apartment in the rapidly gentrifying Old Fourth Ward neighborhood of Atlanta. Like many evicted families, they went from living in a school district that spends more money on students to one that spends less.

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****TEACHER VOICE: I’m a new, male kindergarten teacher in rural Missouri. Extra support made a huge difference to my class****

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My entire view of getting help and support changed when Ashley Broadnax, a literacy coach from New Orleans, nearly 700 miles away, came into my class in St. James, Missouri, population 3,900. [link removed]

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****Reading list****

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[link removed]  OPINION: It will take patience and courage to fix K-12 education without the Department of Education [link removed] 
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This is a perfect time to design a new system that won’t fail students and parents

Tracking Trump: His actions on education [link removed]

The president is working to eliminate the Education Department and fighting ‘woke’ ideology in schools. A week-by-week look at what he’s done

OPINION: Funding high-quality teacher preparation programs should be the highest priority for policymakers [link removed]
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Our public education programs are not designed to support aspiring educators, but should be

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