Sending children to school acts as an antidote to the violent extremism of terror groups like Boko Haram and Islamic State. But an estimated 258 million children are unable to go to school, according to the United Nations, putting their futures and the fate of their communities at risk.

WASHINGTON—Each year, Protestant and Catholic schools from across the country send busloads of students to the March for Life in Washington. On Friday, President Donald Trump even made note of the high level of youth participation when he addressed this year’s pro-life rally.

“This is a tremendous turnout—tens of thousands of high school and college students who took long bus rides to be here in our nation’s capital,” the president said. “Young people are the heart of the March for Life, and it’s your generation that is making America the pro-family, pro-life nation.”

The seventh and eighth grade boys basketball team at Queensway Christian College in Toronto was “flat out terrible,” one former player recalled to The Toronto Star. Then he showed up, and the team began winning by 40 to 50 points.

Some students in upstate New York returned from the holidays to schools equipped with controversial facial recognition software that district officials claim will enhance security. Parents and privacy advocates worry about the myriad potential abuses.

More than 76 million students across the nation returned to school this week following the holidays, and 8 million of them who qualify as chronically absent have already missed at least eight days of school this school year. That translates to more than 50 hours of lost instructional time each student likely won’t recover.

Young men paid the ultimate price to save their classmates from gun violence. Teachers marched through the streets, demanding change. Prosecutors uncovered corruption in the high-stakes world of elite college admissions. Clashes characterized the field of education in 2019. The struggles that students, parents, and educators endured taught them important lessons they can carry into the new year.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order last week targeting anti-Semitism on college campuses, drawing praise from some and fear from others that it may lead to a silencing of free speech.

“This is our message to universities: If you want to accept the tremendous amount of federal dollars that you get every year, you must reject anti-Semitism,” the president said. “It’s very simple.”