How one tiny town is battling ‘rural brain drain'

The non-profit Root Capital created a lending initiative in Mexico which helps mid-size rural farmers gain access to capital, skills, and consumer markets from which they would otherwise be excluded.

On average, black students in public schools receive fewer resources giving them a late start. A mostly black university in New Orleans has increased overall achievement by developing students’ shared responsibility for one another’s success.

Inmates who get correctional education are less likely to become repeat offenders, but education costs money. An organization is funding educational opportunities for prisoners in various cities in the U.S. to improve their reentry into society.

Volunteer teachers in Bengaluru's government schools have helped increase English learning in K-12 schools. The volunteers, who are organized and paid through the organization Acharyas for a Better Community (ABC), work with local teachers to plan lessons, integrate into the communities, and teach students how to read, write, and speak English.

For the past four years, several rural Colorado school districts have experimented with alternative forms of evaluation that don't rely solely on the results of educational testing. Now, a proposed bill, with wide support, would provide financial and logistical support to these pilots.

JamieSue Goodman, an employee at Google, was part of the team that developed an Applied Digital Skills curriculum that teaches students how to use technology to accomplish real-world tasks. Available for educators worldwide, 360,000 students have used the materials since its launch and 50,000 teachers have registered on the site. Students and teachers alike attest to how fun, engaging, and useful the education is.

As schools across the United States weigh the pros and cons of sticking to remote learning, welcoming students back into the classroom, or a hybrid, there are lessons to learn from schools around the world. In China and France, teachers have gotten creative by having students wear wings that help them remember proper social distance, and other teachers have decorated the playground with smiley faces to indicate where students should stand. Other schools in Denmark and Finland reintroduced students to class by age, since data has supported that children under 10 are less likely to transmit the virus.

In the 1930s, about one million Mexican and Mexican-Americans, who were born in the U.S., were forcibly removed from the U.S. under the presidency of Herbert Hoover. Its called the “Mexican Repatriation.” A class in Bell Gardens elementary learned about it almost by accident. They wanted a formal federal apology and applied to the California “ought to be a law” contest. They testified in front of the California assembly. The governor of California signed a law that encourages courses in history books to include the Mexican repatriation.

New tactics are being implemented to prevent elephants from approaching farmland in Sri Lanka. Clashes between people and elephants have increased with the expansion of small farms encroaching into elephant habitats. One solution to prevent damage to crops and to protect people has been electric fences. The fences deliver a small shock - enough to deter the elephant without harming it.

Motivated by educational disparities, lack of culturally relevant programming, and safety concerns in public schools, Black families are forming homeschooling pods and co-ops that allow them to tailor their children's education while also finding a sense of community support.