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| | LATEST NEWS FOR PRINCIPALS |
PBS Newshour
Now: using the power and appeal of the arts to boost low-performing schools. Arts frequently get cut from school curricula due to money and time, but a pilot program around the country is trying to use music, performance and other arts in dozens of schools to motivate kids. Jeffrey Brown has the story. It's part of our weekly series on Making the Grade.
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eSchool News
In the shadow of Apple Computer's 1 Infinite Loop headquarters, an initiative requiring public middle schoolers to use iPads in class and at home has spawned a growing battle over education in the digital age. District officials and many teachers tout the iPads as innovative learning tools. Students, it seems, are thrilled to have them. But many parents in the affluent district — including some software engineers, Apple employees and a brain researcher — question the benefit of the devices, and hundreds have signed a petition to limit their use.
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Education Week
The latest results of the Program for International Student Assessment give tantalizing hints of the connections between students' early-childhood education and their later math scores. A new international test may provide more insights into what those connections mean for policy, but experts warn that it remains hard to tell what the United States can learn from other countries' approaches to preschool.
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By: Sheilamary Koch
 Today, the vast majority of the English spoken around the world is not between native speakers — in actuality, only about 25 percent involves L1 speakers. Such use of English as a contact language between people who don't have the same mother tongue and often share no other language is referred to as English as lingua franca, or ELF. It is currently the most prevalent way English is used globally and becoming more so each year.
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The Hechinger Report
By design, some students go through two years of kindergarten in Middletown, New York. People associate repeating grades with disastrous consequences. But in the Middletown City School District, the kindergarten repeaters often end up ahead of their peers in later grades — standout students who avoided getting forever labeled as performing "below expectations." They've had the extra instruction they needed, when they needed it. The district has worked to remove the stigma of being "slow," and has stopped moving children in lockstep through school in grade bands defined by age. They now focus on each child’s individual needs.
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[Istation]
Learn the four must-haves schools need for a successful response to intervention (RTI) model. How to Build an RTI Framework is a free eBook that covers universal screening, continuous progress monitoring, data-based decision making, and multi-level prevention systems. See how building an effective RTI framework with computer-adaptive educational technology helps maximize student achievement.
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The Hechinger Report
Can students learn about what they like, at their own pace, and still pass standardized tests at the end of each year? It's a dilemma facing a growing number of schools and districts that have jumped onto a new tech-fueled trend in education known as "personalized learning." The goal of personalized learning is to tailor lessons for individual students to help them master content on their own schedule, whether it's faster or slower than their same-age peers. At its most extreme, personalized learning can also unfetter kids to study whatever they're most interested in, although experts say most schools still require students to cover key subjects and skills.
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Edutopia (commentary)
Students need periodic breaks to ease brain strain, and the perceived demand that they should always be on task is unrealistic.
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UltraKey® Online is the latest generation of the teacher’s favorite typing tutor with all-new interfacing, the delightful new Game Zone™ with challenging language activities, voice-supported instruction, and a powerful management system perfect for small, medium and large districts. For your live preview, call 1-800-465-6428 or visit: www.bytesoflearning.com
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eSchool News
Ask many public school parents about student data use and privacy, and you'll likely end up with a heated debate about protecting sensitive, personal information. But what do parents really understand about school technology use and student data privacy? The Future of Privacy Forum set out to do just that in 2015 and 2016, and surveys revealed that while parents understood the technologies used in their children's schools, they were less informed about specific laws and practices that pertain to protecting student information.
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District Administration Magazine
Three years into a digital-first initiative, Andrew Smith, chief strategy officer in North Carolina's Rowan-Salisbury School System, has seen his role revised. In fact, "my position didn't exist when all of this started," Smith says. When Smith was hired under Rowan-Salisbury Superintendent Lynn Moody in 2013, the new position was part of a restructuring of the district's technology department that coincided with the digital-first initiative.
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New York University via Science Daily
Cognitive skills and experiences like classroom-based play in kindergarten lead to participation in extracurricular activities in eighth grade among children growing up in poverty, finds a new study.
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Reuters Health
Children who get more exercise may have fewer symptoms of depression than their peers who are less active, a recent study suggests. Researchers used activity trackers to see how much physical activity children got, then interviewed kids and their parents to assess whether kids had symptoms of depression. When kids got more moderate to vigorous physical activity at ages 6 and 8, they were less likely to have symptoms of major depressive disorder two years later, the study found.
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eSchool News
The high-stakes nature of state exams means that schools need to assess student understanding in real time rather than wait for scores at the end of year or even the end of a unit. And simply relying on more tests as formative assessments is likely to cause students psychological stress and prompt them to disengage from learning. What's needed are ways to engage students that also enable educators to determine how and what those students are thinking.
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| | FEDERAL ADVOCACY AND POLICY |
Education Week
The U.S. Supreme Court spent an hour wrestling over a handful of words and phrases that could help set a standard for the level of benefit that school districts nationwide must provide to students in special education. "What is frustrating about this case and about this statute is that we have a blizzard of words," Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said late in the oral arguments in Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District (Case No 15-827), referring to words such as "significant" and "meaningful."
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Letters alive Plus
Watch kids react to this highly-engaging solution! This evidence-based program uses augmented reality to introduce letters, letters sounds, building words, and building sentences!
Learn more at: Alive Studios
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Education World
The Pennsylvania Department of Education has announced the launch of a community Pinterest page designed to engage educators, students and families in the state. "The Pinterest page, operating under the handle @PADeptOfEd, will include both original and shared content on boards including, STEM, Music, Art, Reading and Writing, Fitness, College & Career Readiness, Food and Nutrition, Physical Fitness, Educational Apps, Driver Safety, Classroom Ideas, Resources, Crafts, Summer Reading, Back to School, and Quotable Quotes," the Department said in a statement.
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The Hechinger Report
Mississippi legislators have proposed dozens of bills aimed at improving or reforming education in the state ahead of the mid-January deadline for submitting legislation. While some of these are broader and deal with topics like elected superintendents or failing school districts, others dig into smaller, specific aspects of education.
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NAESP
How can principals get teachers to motivate underperforming, low-confidence students to believe they can succeed academically? As the school's head leader and cheerleader, the principal is responsible for promoting the "growth mindset" (the idea that ability can be nurtured) over the "fixed mindset" (the idea that intellect is unchangeable) and ensuring that all children believe they can become smarter, too.
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NAESP
Together with Crayola, NAESP offers a special opportunity to apply for a Champion Creatively Alive Children Grant. Your school could receive a $3,500 grant (a $2,500 check and $1,000 worth of Crayola products) to establish a creative leadership team and build the creative capacity of your professional learning community. The deadline to apply is Friday, June 23. (The Early Bird deadline is Monday, June 5.) Early Bird applications will receive a Crayola product Classpack®.
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Designed for kids ages 5 to 12, Smart Play: Venti packs 20 exciting activities into its compact size.
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7701 Las Colinas Ridge, Ste. 800, Irving, TX 75063
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