Author: Reporter

It is almost 4:00 p.m. at the Nashville branch of the Tennessee College of Applied Technology, and the students in the auto collision repair night class are just starting their school day. One is sanding the seal off the bed of his 1989 Ford F-350. Another is patiently hammering out a banged-up fender. A third, Cheven Jones, is taking a break from working on his 2003 Lexus IS 300 to chat with some classmates. While almost every sector of higher education has fewer students registering for classes, many trade programs are thriving. Jones and his classmates, seeking certificates and...

Move over “Dick and Jane.” A different approach to teaching kids how to read is on the rise. For decades, two schools of thought have clashed on how to best teach children to read, with passionate backers on each side of the so-called reading wars. The battle has reached into homes via commercials for Hooked on Phonics materials and through shoebox dioramas assigned by teachers seeking to instill a love of literature. But momentum has shifted lately in favor of the “science of reading.” The term refers to decades of research in fields including brain science that point to...

David Daniel knows his son needs help. The 8-year-old spent first grade in remote learning and several weeks of second grade in quarantine. The best way to catch him up, research suggests, is to tutor him several times a week during school. But his Indianapolis school offers Saturday or after-school tutoring — programs that do not work for Daniel, a single father. The upshot is his son, now in third grade, isn’t getting the tutoring he needs. “I want him to have the help,” Daniel said. Without it, “next year is going to be really hard on him.” As...

U.S. deaths fell last year, and COVID-19 dropped to the nation’s No. 4 cause, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in May. COVID-19 deaths trailed those caused by heart disease, cancer and injuries such as drug overdoses, motor vehicle fatalities and shootings. In 2020 and 2021, only heart disease and cancer were ahead of the coronavirus. U.S. deaths usually rise year-to-year, in part because the nation’s population has been growing. The pandemic accelerated that trend, making 2021 the deadliest in U.S. history, with more than 3.4 million deaths. But 2022 saw the first drop in deaths since...