Pittsburgh Public Schools reduced suspensions but reported troubling racial disparities in test scores following the recent implementation of a sweeping restorative justice initiative. A study of the program by the Rand Corporation, funded by a $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, found that “proactively improving relationships among students and staff and building a sense of community in classrooms and schools may make students less inclined to misbehave.”

A homeschooling family in Germany plans to appeal for an extraordinary judgment from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) after suffering a significant setback last week. A seven-judge panel of the ECHR ruled Thursday that a German law against homeschooling did not violate the fundamental rights of the Wunderlich family.

A report released last week by the investigative panel tasked with analyzing last year’s horrific shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla., cited systemic failures in the school’s security and local law enforcement procedures. It particularly called out the school resource officer (SRO) at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School for failing to enter the building during the Feb.

As students across the country return from Christmas break, those in the nation’s second-largest public school district may have to wait a little longer. Teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District plan to go on strike starting Jan. 10—their first walkout in nearly 30 years.

Almost everything in education news this year paled in comparison to the two mass-casualty shootings that claimed 27 lives. School safety dominated headlines from February until the November midterms. But with little agreement on school safety solutions, the news cycle ground on to other things. Here are this year’s top five stories in education.

Gregory Wills, a professor of church history at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has spent years chronicling American religious history in general—and Southern Baptist history in particular. Last year, seminary President Albert Mohler, a WORLD News Group board member, asked Wills to head a research team investigating the school’s historic ties to slavery and racism.

Based on his previous research, Wills had an idea of what he would find.

Voters in Seattle approved a tax increase in November to fund education initiatives, including a program making two years of community college free for all high school graduates.