Glasgow's Summer Nights at the Bandstand festival has become the latest major music event to be cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

WE start at the low point. “It’s hard doing music,” Jill O’Sullivan admits. “I love it. I feel compelled to sing and play and write. But I was thinking of quitting.”

DRAKE - DARK LANE DEMO TAPES

To make up for lost opportunities for college admissions testing during the coronavirus crisis, the board plans to offer the test more often in the fall, including some test administrations during the school day.

The European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill got the Royal Assent this week. It was then solemnly signed, sealed and ratified by Ursula von der Leyen, the new President of the European Commission. We’re finally out.

I’m not sure it was wise for Nicola Sturgeon to invoke Nelson Mandela in her speech on the next steps (sic) to independence. He was a revolutionary who pursued a campaign of non-violent direct action, including strikes, boycotts and other acts of civil disobedience. That’s what many ardent Yessers were hoping against hope she might authorise.

Mardi Gras in New Orleans has always had a gothic element. The voodoo culture dates from the African American diaspora, though it’s now mostly for tourists. But this year there was an authentically macabre dimension to Fat Tuesday.

The Scottish political world is holding its breath this weekend.

Writers have been ransacking the Brainy Quotes website looking for inspiration for their coronavirus think pieces. But there is really only one that matters: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself”. Franklin D Roosevelt’s epigram is appropriate because it is as disingenuous as it is paradoxical.

Next week, Nicola Sturgeon is promising to outline her proposals for lifting the lockdown. Good luck with that. She is unlikely to open the schools because she can't rely on parents to send their children.

Nicola Sturgeon won plaudits from some unlikely quarters this week for her “grown-up conversation” on lifting the lockdown.

“It's not the end; it's not even the beginning of the end; but it is perhaps the end of the beginning”. Churchill's famous wartime speech after the battle of El Alamein in November 1942 was an ambiguous rallying cry. After all, by saying it was only the beginning, he was suggesting that there could be worse to come.

A is for Audible

One of the country's most-loved couples returned to Channel 4 this week with Richard & Judy: Keep Reading And Carry On. The presenters talk to Georgia Humphreys about marriage, their love of books, and filming in lockdown.

Co-hosts Keith Lemon and Anna Richardson talk to Gemma Dunn about their new show, The Fantastical Factory Of Curious Craft.

One of the biggest pieces of unfinished business for education groups when it comes to federal help with the coronavirus is connectivity and online learning. But what's the state of play?

Chief technology officers are facing an unprecedented test of digital preparedness due to the coronavirus pandemic, struggling with shortfalls of available learning devices and huge Wi-Fi access challenges.

E-learning may help some schools keep instruction flowing but major gaps in access and resources mean not all schools are ready to offer virtual classes, and not all students are equipped to learn online.

Before the massive rush to remote learning, most teachers used digital resources as supplements rather than primary materials, a RAND study shows.

The Federal Communications Commission is engaging Congress to expand funding for in-home connectivity and devices for teachers and students grappling with the coronavirus crisis.

The director of teaching and learning for a Minnesota district talks about putting e-learning days into action under difficult circumstances.

The top technology official for Virginia's Fairfax County schools resigned after the district struggled to handle some major technical glitches in its e-learning platforms.

Schools and tech companies in the U.S. and abroad have experience deploying virtual learning should a coronavirus emergency arise.

Many parents are having to take on a variety of new roles, from playing IT help desk to becoming makeshift teaching assistants to supervising recess.

States are adjusting the policies and strategies designed for short- term remote instruction—like snow day plans—to support students for the rest of the school year.

SCOTTISH Government ministers have appealed to Westminster for financial support to be handed over to universities during the Covid-19 pandemic amid a pledge that Holyrood is “ready to stand by” institutions.

THE teacher had four pupils yesterday. Just four pupils out of a class of 33 took part in virtual online lockdown lessons.

SCOTLAND’S universities must play their part in adapting to the “new normal” amid warnings that institutions could be forced to merge in return for government support.

Schools in Wales could be allowed to reopen their doors next month in a phased approach, the first minister has said.

THE SCOTTISH Government “does not consider it likely” that schools will fully re-open “in the foreseeable future” - while working from home is “likely to persist as part of the new normal”.

The Long Beach, Calif., school district is deploying a multifaceted strategy to put more students of color in high-level math courses and help them succeed.

Building science lessons around phenomena that students know equally and can see in their own lives is making the subject more relevant and interesting.

An internationally known gifted-education center is scouting—and helping to develop—gifted students in after-school programs and pullout classes in one of Maryland’s most challenged school districts.

One particularly tense staff meeting helped educator Robert Parker rethink how his school celebrated Black History Month.

By automatically enrolling all students in high-level courses, schools in Washington state are working to erase a long entrenched form of inequity.

Fed up with their district’s unmet pledges to stop steering African American students into low-level classes, parents take action.

Quiz yourself: What do census statistics reveal about school enrollment, classroom diversity, and education outcomes, and how could the 2020 Census impact school services?

And four strategies for fixing the underlying problems most often laid bare, from Great Schools Partnership’s Craig Kesselheim.

A pair of new studies find that, when given a choice, white parents tend to send their children to schools that are predominantly white.

Educational equity is more than just a philosophy to embrace—it is a goal realized through concrete actions.

The evidence that culturally responsive teaching can fix the nation's schools for children of color is promising, but woefully incomplete, writes Heather C. Hill.

Affinity groups known as caucuses let teacher-candidates at the University of Washington gather with others who share part of their identity, such as race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation.

Here are five takeaways on the teaching profession from the newly released 2017-18 National Teacher and Principal Survey.

Blaming teachers unions for all the ills afflicting public schools does not stand up to scrutiny.

In the face of well-funded opposition to organized labor, teachers will not be silenced, writes NEA President Lily Eskelsen García.

Within days of the Supreme Court’s decision to abolish union fees for nonmembers, conservative groups—including ones with ties to Ed. Secretary Betsy DeVos—launched email, social media, and billboard campaigns to try to convince teachers not to join their unions.

In the aftermath of this spring's teacher protests, more educators are running for state office—and the National Education Association is seizing on the political moment.

"This lawsuit will enable teachers like me to recover the agency fees that we were wrongly forced to pay against our will," said one of the plaintiffs.