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| | LATEST NEWS FOR PRINCIPALS |
District Administration Magazine
More than 6 million students — representing 13 percent of the K-12 population — missed at least 15 days of school in 2013-2014, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis from the U.S. Department of Education. "Every district has attendance data, but most haven't been calculating chronic absence," says Hedy Nai-Lin Chang, executive director of Attendance Works, a national initiative to increase student achievement by increasing attendance. "If you're looking at access and equity in schools — whether or not kids are in school so they have a chance to learn — is a huge indicator of whether we’re creating equal opportunities."
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EdTech Magazine
More than 50 million students will soon return to school, and school districts have been spending the summer upgrading classroom technology in preparation for their return. For all the work done this summer, IT administrators will look for ways to continually improve throughout the school year as well. As another academic year prepares to kick off, here are five technology priorities that districts will want to invest in to improve the student experience.
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The Washington Post
Cursive writing was supposed to be dead by now. Schools would stop teaching it. Kids would stop learning it. Everyone would stop using it. The Common Core standards adopted by most states in recent years no longer required teaching cursive in public schools, and the widespread reaction was succinct: good riddance. But like Madonna and newspapers, cursive has displayed a gritty staying power, refusing to have its loop de loops and curlicues swept to the dustbin of handwriting history. Just last month, Louisiana passed a law requiring that all traditional public schools and public charter schools begin teaching cursive by third grade and continue through 12th grade.
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By: Brian Stack (commentary)
 The Washington Post's Moriah Balingit and Donna St. George recently opened up a large debate by asking a simple question: Is it becoming too hard to fail? Their article discussed how schools are shifting toward no-zero grading policies as a way to focus a student's grade on what they know and are able to do rather than to use grades as a means to motivate or punish students. Failure is a part of life, but failure should be an opportunity for further learning and improvement.
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NPR
Math is "contemptible and vile." That's not from a disgruntled student. It's from a textbook. The author, 16th century mathematician Robert Recorde, nestled the line just after his preface, table of contents and a biblical quote citing God's command to measure and number all things. Recorde didn't believe in math's awfulness — quite the opposite. He was simply reflecting popular opinion on his way to a spirited defense of math. Why? Mathematics was associated with banking and trade and so "was shunned among the upper classes and the educated classes in Europe," explains Houman Harouni of Harvard University.
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By: Sonya Robbins Hoffman (commentary)
 My daughter has dyslexia. Her reading difficulties were finally diagnosed this year, three months into second grade. But as many parents with children who have dyslexia find out, this is a constellation of processing and/or auditory weaknesses, and simply giving the disability a name does not make easy to treat. Nonetheless, there are certain things I wish I had known — a few lessons learned — that I hope might be helpful to other parents and educators who are struggling.
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The Washington Post
It was July-hot outside of Octavia Wolf's classroom, but inside, 18 children were gathered on a rug around their teacher, who led them through a book about the life of undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau. As Wolf posed questions, hands shot up. Students talked about Cousteau's early fascinations. His scuba gear. The fun he had doing flips underwater. "He should stop doing tricks and start discovering stuff," said Julianna Lopez, 9, stirring ripples of laughter and sparking a spontaneous discussion of the discoveries that can be made through play. Designed to help students catch up and stave off "summer slide" — when children lose ground in academics while school is out — Wolf's class at Sargent Shriver Elementary School in Silver Spring, Md., is part of an effort that goes beyond traditional summer school.
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New America
In early July, more than 1,500 school leaders and policy experts gathered near Washington, D.C. for the annual conference of the National Association of Elementary School Principals to delve into topics including school turnaround, parent engagement, the impacts of ESSA, and, notably, what it means to be the leader of a PreK-3rd grade learning community.
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THE Journal
When the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development last year issued a report saying that countries investing heavily in school technology have seen no noticeable improvement in their scores on international benchmark exams, education thought leader Alan November wasn't surprised. "There is essentially no evidence that technology has added value to our core business" of teaching and learning," November said. But that's not because technology is a poor instructional tool. On the contrary, "I don't think we have a technology problem," he said. "What we have is a learning problem."
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EdSurge
Every year, 7:30 a.m. seems to come earlier. If that sentiment seems familiar, perhaps you are the parent of a teenager. With three teenagers, the daily gauntlet to get them out the door and to school on time has gotten tougher as they reached middle and high school. This fact hit home when we experienced a two-hour delay this winter, a morning that still stands out as a glorious aberration from our normal, stressful routine. Significant research has shown that early school start times negatively impact teenagers' performance and health.
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NPR
Take a look this summer inside some of America's garages, museums and libraries and you'll see that the "maker movement" is thriving. This hands-on, DIY culture of inventors, tinkerers and hackers is inspiring adults and children alike to design and build everything from sailboats and apps to solar cars. And this fall, more of these chaotic workspaces, stocked with glue guns, drills and hammers, will be popping up in schools, too. But the maker movement faces some big hurdles as it pushes into classrooms.
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eSchool News
It goes without saying that technology is always changing. School leaders are expected to help their teachers use current technology to enhance learning, but at the same time, they must keep on top of future technologies that might soon impact teaching and learning. Changes in professional development delivery, virtual reality in classrooms, online learning innovations, and tools that enable students to share their progress and accomplishments are just a few of the fast-evolving areas educators must track.
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Education Week
When compared to both their peers internationally and fellow American college graduates, U.S. teachers have middling math and literacy skills, finds a group of international researchers, who conclude that boosting salaries would be one way to attract higher-skilled individuals into teaching.
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| | FEDERAL ADVOCACY AND POLICY |
Los Angeles Times
The U.S. Department of Education has issued guidelines aimed at preventing schools from discriminating against the growing numbers of students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. In a letter to school districts and a "know your rights" document to be posted on its website, the department said schools must obey existing civil rights law to identify students with the disorder and provide them with accommodations to help them learn.
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U.S. Department of Education
The U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services today released guidance to states, school districts and child welfare agencies on the new provisions in the Every Student Succeeds Act for supporting children in foster care. The guidance aims to assist state and local partners in understanding and implementing the new law, and to inform state and local collaboration between educational and child welfare agencies across the nation for the well-being of children in foster care.
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Maine Public Broadcasting
Figuring out how to deal with "problem children" in the classroom has always been a challenge for teachers and administrators. These students, who often have social and emotional problems, have traditionally been punished with a trip the principal's office, or with detentions and suspensions. One school in western Maine is trying a new strategy — creating a separate classroom designed specifically for children with social and behavioral problems. When Courtney Smith taught fourth and fifth-graders at New Suncook Elementary School in Lovell, particular students always stood out to her — the kids sitting alone on the playground, or becoming angry and punching other students.
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Education World
According to local reports, San Diego Unified District is making moves to prevent the bullying of Muslim students within its schools. In a school board meeting, members of the community packed the house to ask the board to take measures to protect Muslim students from harassment.
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Education DIVE
Small, rural school districts in Oregon have historically lost some of their best teachers to nearby city districts that can pay more. But a focus on teacher leadership in some of these rural districts seems to be making them increasingly competitive. Now, teacher retention numbers are higher at some schools and state surveys show at least some teachers are willing to stay put with slightly lower pay if it means staying away from top-down leadership that is more common in today's public schools.
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NAESP
Even though it was early in the morning, I couldn't help but dance a little in my chair while I waited for the #naesp16 session, "Don't Shy Away from Greatness" to begin. The presenter, Nick Proud (a principal from Iowa) had upbeat music playing and welcomed principals in to a room that quickly became standing room only. We began by talking at our tables and answering the question, "What is your school positively known for in your community?" Many school slogans or mottos, explained Proud, do not necessarily impact instruction or student learning. If you are going to brand your school, you had better make sure that your slogan has a positive impact on your students, he stressed.
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NAESP
At #naesp16, Baruti K. Kafele, author of "The Principal 50: Critical Leadership Questions for Inspiring Schoolwide Excellence", spoke passionately about student, teacher, and principal empowerment. As an accomplished former principal of 14 years in East Orange, New Jersey, and other New Jersey schools, he has been part of and seen many schools that overcame the odds. These were the schools where the principal said, "This school is soaring, or it will soar because I lead it."
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