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| | LATEST NEWS FOR PRINCIPALS |
By: Cait Harrison (commentary)
 Changes are coming again to school lunches. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue recently announced that the department is taking steps to roll back lunch standards promoted by former first lady Michelle Obama. The rollback gives more local control to states and comes after feedback from students, school and food service experts, including the School Nutrition Association, which lobbied for the new flexibilities. But some school nutrition experts question whether the changes are necessary.
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International Literacy Association
Reading and writing are complex areas to assess. No single assessment can include all aspects of these complex processes. What's more, there are multiple purposes for literacy assessment, and no single assessment can serve all purposes. Together, these facts make it clear that literacy assessment is much more complicated than many realize. In short, literacy assessment needs to reflect the multiple dimensions of reading and writing and the various purposes for assessment as well as the diversity of the students being assessed.
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School Leaders Now (commentary)
How a principal handles complaints is crucial to his/her reputation with both parents and teachers. Teachers want to know that you support your staff. Parents want to know that you can be counted on to deal with issues involving their kids. It's not always easy, or even possible, to please both sides. But you can handle a problem so that both respect your decision.
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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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MindShift
Untangling education research can often feel overwhelming, which may be why many research-based practices take a long time to show up in real classrooms. It could also be one reason John Hattie's work and book, Visible Learning, appeals to so many educators. Rather than focusing on one aspect of teaching, Hattie synthesizes education research done all over the world in a variety of settings into meta analyses, trying to understand what works in classrooms.
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American Educational Research Association via Science Daily
Based on a study of more than 30,000 elementary, middle, and high school students conducted in winter 2015–2016, researchers found that elementary and middle school students scored lower on a computer-based test that did not allow them to return to previous items than on two comparable tests — paper- or computer-based — that allowed them to skip, review and change previous responses.
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University of Texas at Austin via Science Daily
School programs designed to educate children and adolescents on how to understand and manage emotions, relationships and academic goals must go beyond improving the skills of the individuals to create a respectful climate and allow adolescents more autonomy in decision making, according to psychology research.
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School Leaders Now (commentary)
Recently, we posted a quick poll on our WeAreTeachers Facebook page asking teachers to share their motivation killers and fill in the blank: One thing I wish I could change about my school for next year is _______. We thought you'd appreciate reading their answers. After all, the more you know as a principal about what teachers wish for, the better you can do.
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Education DIVE
Rural school districts continue to struggle with a host of challenges, including a lack of necessary resources and difficulty in attracting and retaining teacher talent, according to a new report from the Rural School and Community Trust, examining the state of rural schools in the school year 2015-2016.
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eSchool News
It's woven in every aspect of modern daily life, but branding isn't new to the scene. Archeologists found branded wine casks in the ancient ruins of Pompeii. The legacy brand, Quaker Oats, turned what was cattle feed into a successful breakfast staple. In the next decade, Amazon's Alexa and her virtual assistant buddies, Cortina and Bixby are poised to be the homey brand face of Artificial Intelligence that will connect every aspect of our domestic lives. So, finally seeing the brand conversation bubble up in the education space isn't a surprise. It's actually a bit overdue. If you are associated with a school in any way — as a leader, educator, staff member, student, parent, community member or potential co-business education partner — you need to be talking about branding your school now. Here are five reasons why.
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Education World
Some 98,500 students across the United States received free or reduced lunches in school during 2016. The number of those students who received the free lunches provided during the summer break paled in comparison at just under 12,000.For states with an especially high volume of children living under the poverty line, that lack of meals being taken advantage of in the summer months is especially concerning. "In Mississippi one in four kids struggle with hunger and that number is higher than the national average of one in five children so the Mississippi Gulf Coast has a higher percentage of children that struggle with hunger," said Cindy Bloom who works with the Mississippi Department of Education through the organization Feeding the Gulf Coast.
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Education DIVE
Technology is changing how teachers communicate and create new ways for students to learn. Access to the latest innovations depends on variables such as district location, administrative interest and amount of funding. But, several technologies are finding widespread appeal in urban, rural, well-funded and economically challenged districts alike. While makerspaces, along with augmented and virtual reality have gained steam in recent years, schools and districts will likely need to make steady progress in other areas before even considering them. Education Dive lays out five ed tech trends that should be top-of-mind for all K-12 administrators as they build a solid foundation for their tech strategy.
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Edutopia
Summer is becoming a lost art. Perhaps that's why so many in our profession are losing heart. We run into summer at full velocity, and many teachers never slow down but tumble into more events for their children or themselves. Many of us volunteer too much, plan too much, and do too much — if we're not careful, we start the fall without getting the most important things done.
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| | FEDERAL ADVOCACY AND POLICY |
U.S. News & World Report
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos delivered a gut check to thousands of charter schools advocates gathered in Washington, D.C., reminding them that when it comes to school choice they are not the only player. "Charters' success should be celebrated, but it's equally important not to, quote, 'become the man'," DeVos said at the annual conference of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.
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THE Journal
Feedback is trickling in on the U.S. Department of Education's new website dedicated to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. This was the same website that drew such concern for its disappearance shortly after Betsy DeVos, head of the department, took charge. Special education advocates were especially troubled about DeVos' possible attitude towards students with special needs after she fumbled questions related to the topic during her confirmation hearing. The department was quick to assure the public that the previous site had gone down due to server glitches.
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Education Week
The Every Student Succeeds Act is supposed to be a brave new world when it comes to school improvement. States and districts will now get to decide what to do about perennially struggling schools, and schools where certain groups of students, like English language learners, aren't doing well. So now that states have all this newfound freedom, what are they deciding to do with it? We looked at the school improvement portions of the 17 ESSA plans that have been submitted to the U.S. Department of Education for approval.
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Santa Fe New Mexican
The father of three bilingual students testified in a state court that his children are struggling because they have not received tutoring, summer school or any other form of intervention to help keep them on track. Speaking in Spanish, with a court interpreter translating his remarks, Roberto Sanchez painted a portrait of a state public school system that neglects English language learners because, as he put it, "There's more students, less teachers and less attention paid to the students." Sanchez, whose children attend Santa Fe public schools, is one of many plaintiffs in a lawsuit claiming New Mexico and the state Public Education Department are not investing enough money in public schools and are therefore failing students across the state.
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NAESP
Inspiration is the reason why, every year, I look forward to attending the NAESP conference. While at the conference, I have always wondered what it would be like to attend a leadership conference that included school leaders representing Pre-K through grade 12. I thought how great it would be to collaborate with colleagues who would lead our students on the next part of their educational journey. How great would it be to hear speakers and attend workshops about topics and issues that we all face as we lead in the 21st century? It would be eye-opening and inspiring to hear about the kinds of things students in secondary schools are learning and doing.
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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 an upcoming mentor training in Alexandria, Virginia, July 27-28. Click here to register and find more information.
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