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| | LATEST NEWS FOR PRINCIPALS |
Education World
Troy is smart, but disrupts classes all day and is in detention at least once a week. He’s regularly the topic of disparaging talk among teachers and administrators, and is well-known by the attendance office for missing school. He mutters "I don't care" in response to the lectures he frequently receives. Ellie sits behind him in math, and in this class and throughout her day teachers get very little work or response. Juan, on the other hand, who is required to sit in the front, just can't stop talking and disrupting class. These three middle school students will often get extra attention in school, but won't succeed because the real reason for their behavior isn't addressed: trauma.
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The Atlantic
Districts serving many low-income children in New Jersey receive nearly $5,000 more per pupil from the state government than districts with a fewer poor students. If that same district was located in Montana, it would only receive an extra $18 per student from the state. Despite the fact that the majority of states have education funding formulas meant to target low-income students, the effectiveness of this targeting varies widely around the country.
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Education World
It's a safe assumption that nearly all students enjoy the break from homework and test taking that summer brings. It's also during this roughly two-month vacation that learning retention starts to slip. The result is that teachers generally have to spend the first month or so at the beginning of the school year bringing students back up to speed on previously covered material. Some 66 percent of teachers said that they have to help their students get caught back up at the beginning of the year, according to a survey conducted by the National Summer Learning Association. Reading, spelling and math skills are generally the subjects most affected during the long break.
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Over 75% of transgender students feel unsafe at school, and staff do not know how to help them. Welcoming Schools, the nation’s premier professional development program for elementary schools, provides educators with best practices to support transgender students and prevent bias-based bullying.
Visit www.welcomingschools.org to learn more.
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Edutopia (commentary)
Nell K. Duke, a contributor for Edutopia, writes: "The number one concern that I hear from educators is lack of time, particularly lack of instructional time with students. It's not surprising that we feel a press for time. Our expectations for students have increased dramatically, but our actual class time with students has not. Although we can't entirely solve the time problem, we can mitigate it by carefully analyzing our use of class time, looking for what Beth Brinkerhoff and Alysia Roehrig (2014) call 'time wasters.'"
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School Library Journal
Today's students have an online playground in addition to the physical one at their schools. But unlike school playgrounds, digital spaces are rarely monitored or supervised. As students connect, communicate and collaborate digitally, they need to learn web literacy, source evaluation, information filtering, and self-monitoring skills. Merely teaching digital citizenship skills is not enough. Responsible online behavior needs to become part of the district or campus climate.
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eSchool News
Want to hear the story about the most embarrassing moment of my life? My students sure did. I tell that story, much to the delight of my fifth graders, to teach a way to approach plot in narrative writing. Stories are powerful instructional tools, and as humans, our brains are wired to respond to them. Storytelling, which can teach us about ourselves, about possibilities, and about culture, is such a powerful learning tool that it is even being used to teach robots. Though cultural literacy is tricky to teach to middle schoolers, cyber resources — perfect for summer — are now available to help; and nothing tells the story of our culture better than the Smithsonian Institution.
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THE Journal
A Microsoft project will teach blind students from seven to 11 years-old how to program and apply design thinking to projects. "Project Torino," as it's called, uses a "physical programming language," pods that are connected by the students to build programs. Learners string the pods together to create code that plays music, stories and poetry. The idea is to allow kids with visual impairment to participate in coding exercises in their classes right alongside seeing students — or to allow all students to learn the basics of coding in a tactile way.
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Education Week
We all know that incorporating technology throughout K-12 classrooms is a big focus for schools. From reading to science projects, tapping cutting-edge technology can improve the learning process. Yet, how applicable is technology to physical education courses? It can actually be a big advantage. Being part of the Ed Tech movement doesn't stop once you enter the school gymnasium. Here's how applying modern technology can benefit students and enhance cross-curricular engagement.
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Education Week
A first-of-its-kind national survey sought to examine the state of foreign language education in primary and secondary schools, but found a striking "lack of knowledge about foreign language teaching and learning." The National K-12 Foreign Language Enrollment Survey sought out data on foreign language course enrollment by state and the number of programs by state. The survey also explored the range of languages that are taught in schools and where. The survey was sponsored by the Language Flagship at the Defense Language and National Security Education Office, which is part of the U.S. Department of Defense.
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UPI
A new study by Tufts University found that second-grade students who read aloud to therapy dogs had better attitudes about reading and improved literacy. "Previous studies have evaluated the impact of therapy dogs in children's literacy programs outside of the academic setting, including our previous research evaluating children reading to dogs in a library program," Deborah Linder, research assistant professor at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts and associate director of Tufts Institute for Human-Animal Interaction, said in a press release. "However, little has been done to assess the effects of this type of reading program in schools, where children may experience greater stress, challenging social situations and fear of negative feedback."
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eSchool News
As the academic school year ends, many teachers come to the unforeseen conclusion that some students lack the motivation to turn in assignments on-time. It is not an easy task. Grading papers is still a daunting teaching duty. But it doesn't have to be. Teachers have many tools available to encourage students to turn-in those assignments on time. As technology is flooding the classrooms with the latest computer innovation and more students rely on personal devices, it is no wonder students desire to use technology all the time. Even in Title I school districts, computers are a prominent part of urban schools.
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NPR
Reyna Gordon was an aspiring opera singer fresh out of college when she began contemplating the questions that would eventually define her career. "I moved to Italy when I finished my bachelor of music, and I started to take more linguistic classes and to think about language in the brain, and music in the brain," she says. "What was happening in our brains when we were listening to music, when we were singing? What was happening in my brain when I was singing?" Those questions led her to a graduate program in neuroscience in Marseilles, France.
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PBS Newshour
Living in the rural mountain community of Salida, Colorado, Kate and Mike Madden were fortunate to have a lot of family support for child care when their two sons were infants. But as their boys enroll in early childhood programming this August, the family will be on a new schedule, both time-wise and financially. Their 4-year-old son will attend half-day preschool and his 1-and-a-half-year-old brother will attend half-day Early Head Start before leaving for private daycare in the second part of the day.
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EdSurge
Want to make your teacher salary go as far as possible? Go Midwest, young Padawan. And stay far, far away from Hawaii. The great state of Michigan tops the list of states where teachers can enjoy the highest average salary — adjusted for cost of living. That adjustment is important, because as any resident of the San Francisco Bay Area who have friends elsewhere (like this correspondent) can tell you, a dollar does not go equally far everywhere in the United States. Illinois, Pennsylvania, Wyoming and Ohio round out the top five states. Teacher salaries go the least far in Hawaii, South Dakota and Maine.
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THE Journal
The Consortium for School Networking released an updated version of its national privacy toolkit for school system leaders. The new "Protecting Privacy in Connected Learning, Version 3" toolkit serves as an "in-depth guide to key student data privacy laws" and how these laws operate together, according to the CoSN site. The updated version offers more information on the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment. In addition, CoSN has expanded definitions of key privacy terms, suggested contract terms and more. New information on metadata and data identification issues, as well as click-wrap agreements, has also been added.
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| | FEDERAL ADVOCACY AND POLICY |
Disability Scoop
Three months after a key government special education website crashed, federal officials are introducing a revamped online presence. The U.S. Department of Education launched a new website dedicated to housing information on the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The updated resource, which is based on feedback from parents, educators, disability advocates and other stakeholders, offers a design that's more consistent with the rest of the Education Department's branding. The site features better search capabilities, enhanced accessibility and more content, the agency said.
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Chicago Tribune
Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Public Schools officials announced the expansion of incentive and training programs for district principals, using the opportunity to criticize state education funding and promote academic improvements in a system still distancing itself from a principal training scandal. The Independent Schools Principals program, which frees high-performing principals from oversight by CPS network managers, will add 29 school leaders from across the city to its ranks. The selected principals receive greater autonomy in budget-making and purchasing procedures, and are able to share ideas with others in the program — desirable perks in a school system that has struggled to attract and retain top talent.
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The Hechinger Report
Weekday mornings this school year, Bonnie Barnes often awoke before 7 a.m. in her single bed, showered, and ate breakfast on the small dining table under a print that read, "Life does not have to be perfect to be wonderful." About an hour later, she would leave her apartment and walk up the hill to await the bus. By 9, she had passed through the doors of Riverview East Academy, a pre-K-12 school not far from the Ohio River that separates this Midwestern state from Kentucky.
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NAESP
Wyoming principal Jason Hillman was determined to transform his below average elementary school. His passion and commitment to team-building helped turn it into one of the highest performing schools in the state. A Michigan elementary school principal credits consecutive increases in state rankings to a collaborative process that focuses on student assessment data, timely interventions, and flexibility to meet student needs—nearly a third of the student body are English learners.
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NAESP
Are you interested in strengthening your career while preparing a new generation of leaders? The National Mentor Training and Certification Program offers a highly structured professional development program which integrates a mentor training component that can make the critical difference in sustainability of skilled leaders. NAESP will be hosting upcoming mentor trainings in Mason, Michigan, June 21-22; and Alexandria, Virginia, July 27-28. Click here to register and find more information.
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