2024
March
12
Tuesday

Monitor Daily Podcast

March 12, 2024
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Many hoped for a Ramadan cease-fire in Gaza. But as that hope fades, for now, residents are navigating a holy month whose familiar pillars of community and charity have all but disappeared.

“There’s a feeling the community is turning in on itself, and breaking down,” says correspondent Taylor Luck, who writes about that today with a Gaza correspondent. “The principles of society are under threat.” Food is scarce and often fought over. A sense of community once found as people broke their fast after sunset prayers and returned to mosques for additional prayers and seeing friends has disappeared amid dislocation.

Yet “popular protection groups” have formed. Some nongovernmental organizations are trying to help. And even amid the chaos, people are organizing how to be together for prayers.


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Today's stories

And why we wrote them

Who’s in charge of Gaza? Nobody. Neither Israeli troops nor the Hamas police force is on the streets, leaving citizens prey to a dangerous breakdown of law and order.

Today’s news briefs

• Hur testifies: The House Judiciary Committee hears testimony from special counsel Robert Hur as a 345-page transcript of President Joe Biden’s testimony last fall is released, showing he repeatedly insisted he never meant to retain classified information. The transcript also suggests the exchange was less revealing about Mr. Biden’s memory than Mr. Hur indicated.
• Aid to Ukraine: The United States will rush about $300 million in weapons to Ukraine after finding cost savings in contracts. It’s the Pentagon’s first announced security package for Ukraine since December.
• Haitian leader to resign: Ariel Henry announces he will step down once a transitional presidential council is created. Haiti has been  overwhelmed by violent gangs and widespread violence.
• New online IRS tool: Taxpayers in 12 states who have simple W-2s and claim a standard deduction may be eligible to use Direct File, a free electronic system for filing returns directly to the IRS. The pilot is part of a U.S. government effort to build an alternative to commercial tax preparation software.

Read these news briefs.

Monitor Breakfast

Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski was in Washington to meet with President Joe Biden and congressional leaders. He sat down with reporters Tuesday at a Monitor Breakfast.

Andrei Popoviciu
Ndeymour (center) and Harriet Batchelor (right) work in the Green Wave jewelry workshop, where all the employees are women coming out of shelters.

In Senegal, silversmithing is “men’s work.” Now, a group of women who survived domestic violence is flipping the script, and healing their own traumas in the process. 

Liz Lauren
“Illinoise,” shown at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, opens at New York’s Park Avenue Armory on March 7 after its Chicago run. Based on the beloved album by Sufjan Stevens, the show combines dance and a dialogueless narrative that is not quite a musical, not quite ballet.

How do you adapt a beloved indie album for the stage that includes everything from Frank Lloyd Wright to zombies, the oboe to the accordion? A composer who worked on the new “Illinoise” talks about the assignment of a lifetime.

Essay

David Brion

The old adage is true: Helping others – even amphibians – helps us. As our writer learns, it’s impossible to fixate on your own concerns while focusing on alleviating those of others.


The Monitor's View

The pandemic’s lingering impact on K-12 education – notably, a record absenteeism among students – has forced American educators to look hard at how they can better engage with parents. Nationwide gaps in student learning, one result of Zoom-only classrooms, still need urgent solutions. The usual home-school connections, such as parent-teacher meetings, are no longer seen as enough. Schools are even challenging a long-held assumption that some parents simply don’t care much about their kids’ schooling.

Money is pouring in to find fresh approaches. The federal government recently spent $83 million to support “family engagement” in public schools. California has approved new standards for teachers in shaping their relationships with parents. Teachers, for example, must examine their attitudes and biases about a family’s background, such as language, social status, or even homelessness.

Private philanthropy is backing different techniques. A survey last year by Grantmakers for Education found that 60% of education funders support efforts to help families become more involved in their children’s education. Half of those funders said they plan to give more for the cause.

Many successes in shaping a more sensitive school engagement with parents have resulted in at least one conclusion: “Families really care,” Elisabeth O’Bryon, co-founder of Family Engagement Lab, told Education Week. Her nonprofit helps school districts successfully include family engagement with curriculum.

A former school psychologist, Dr. O’Bryon said in an interview that parents clearly “want information about what their kids are learning and how they can help.” The changes can be as simple as requiring fewer apps for parents to download. Communication can be more fluid, such as using texting. Demands for in-person meetings can be more flexible. Home visits by teachers to establish better relationships can build trust.

A recent study found that schools that scored high on family involvement before the pandemic saw a 39% smaller increase in chronic absenteeism. Those schools also showed less decline in math and English. “With family engagement you see positive outcomes with behavior, motivation, high school graduation, so it’s really wide-ranging – the positive benefits of that engagement with their child’s learning,” Dr. O’Bryon says.

With an approach of giving and problem-solving, family engagement is a team effort well worth the buy-in from all sides. Parental love is there. It just needs better ways to blossom.

Editor's Note: The editorial has been change to give the correct full name of the Family Engagement Lab. 


A Christian Science Perspective

About this feature

Each weekday, the Monitor includes one clearly labeled religious article offering spiritual insight on contemporary issues, including the news. The publication – in its various forms – is produced for anyone who cares about the progress of the human endeavor around the world and seeks news reported with compassion, intelligence, and an essentially constructive lens. For many, that caring has religious roots. For many, it does not. The Monitor has always embraced both audiences. The Monitor is owned by a church – The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston – whose founder was concerned with both the state of the world and the quality of available news.

If it feels like progress in our lives has hit a dead end, we can turn to God in prayer for inspiration that lights the way forward.


Viewfinder

Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters
Some of the over 2,000 rhinos sold to African Parks are seen in captivity, ahead of a rewilding process planned for the next 10 years, at a farm outside Klerksdorp, South Africa, March 12, 2024.
( The illustrations in today’s Monitor Daily are by Karen Norris. )

A look ahead

Thanks for spending time with us today. Tomorrow, Laurent Belsie and Leo Bevilacqua will delve into how the challenge of buying a first home in the United States has expanded – becoming a hardship for young workers and the economy.

More issues

2024
March
12
Tuesday

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