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| | LATEST NEWS FOR PRINCIPALS |
The New York Times
On what was supposed to be the first day of school in some Texas districts, the state with the nation's second-largest K-12 student population was in educational crisis Monday, with hundreds of thousands of families reeling from the effects of Hurricane Harvey. Teachers, students and parents were unsure when classes would be in session, and who, exactly, would be reporting to which schools, when opening bells finally ring.
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School Leaders Now (commentary)
You're either a brand new administrator or just brand new to our campus. Before you show up on campus like a ball of fire (and go down in flames), here are a few things teachers would like you to keep in mind.
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eSchool News
Establishing a principal pipeline could be an affordable path for school districts looking to reduce turnover and improve schools, according to a new report from the nonprofit RAND Corporation. The study examined how six large urban school districts are investing in their leaders through a concept called "principal pipelines," which help districts develop a better preparation, hiring, evaluation and support system for principals to ensure they are effective. The Wallace Foundation funded the initiative. States and districts continue to struggle with a shortage of highly-effective principals, but there is little information about what level of resources would be required to develop such a pipeline.
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NPR
Early-childhood and elementary school programs reflect a diverse set of commitments about what children ought to learn, and about how they ought to do so. Some focus on academic preparation and advancement, with extra attention to reading and mathematics. Some emphasize social-emotional development and community values. Others tout their language classes, or their music program, or the opportunities for children to engage in extended projects of their choosing. Some praise structure and discipline; some prize autonomy and play.
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Education Week
In the spring, fidget spinners were spinning through classrooms across the country, much to many teachers' annoyance. They were the latest craze in a series of educational products to help students focus in class: exercise balls in lieu of chairs, pedal desks, standing desks, and fidget cubes, putty, and other tools students can play with at their desks. A new independent study, "Wiggle While You Work: The Effect of Bouncy Band Use on Classroom Outcomes," looks at one of these fidget tools: Bouncy Bands, which strap to a desk so students can stretch their feet back and forth while sitting.
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Your students don’t all learn in the same way, so why deliver instruction in the same way? Exact Path is focused on understanding where your students are academically and then taking that data a step further. Adaptive tools offer targeted instruction that is aligned to your goals and paced to your students’ needs.
Click here to learn more.
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Chalkbeat
New research challenges a piece of common wisdom about special education: that black students are too often told they have a disability. It's true that 15 percent of black students in the U.S. are identified as disabled, while only 13 percent of white students are. Some worry that misplacing black students in special education segregates them and lowers expectations for their success. The disparity has even prompted action from the federal education department, which has long cautioned school districts against over-identifying students of color.
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Pacific Standard
A new, nationwide study offers typically middling insights into large-scale school reform: School closures, on average, don't much help or hurt student performance. That's the finding of a big report released last week by Stanford University's Center for Research on Education Outcomes, which looked at the effects of low-performing school closures on the students who, in turn, become displaced. Researchers collected data from 1,204 traditional public schools and 318 charter schools between 2006 and 2013. A little less than half of the students pushed out of closed schools ended up in higher-performing institutions, the researchers report.
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eSchool News
The topic of teacher professional development has dominated discussions about teacher quality and retention for years. While some progress has been made, there is still no standardized means for teachers to develop a portfolio of credentials aligned with the always-evolving set of skills and strategies they bring to their classrooms. Digital badging has arrived on the scene as a leading contender to close this gap and help provide teachers with a clear path to professional growth, and the micro-credentials to prove it. This is an important breakthrough for a profession in which a lack of career mobility too often leads to top talent leaving for administration roles or private sector jobs.
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The Associated Press
In middle school, Junior Alvarado often struggled with multiplication and earned poor grades in math, so when he started his freshman year at Washington Leadership Academy, a charter high school in the nation's capital, he fretted that he would lag behind. But his teachers used technology to identify his weak spots, customize a learning plan just for him and coach him through it. This past week, as Alvarado started sophomore geometry, he was more confident in his skills.
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eSchool News
It's fair to say technology is ubiquitous in many classrooms, but because it changes constantly, educators are challenged to keep pace with what's new and next in the classroom. Sometimes, it's difficult for educators to filter through the hype and identify the most pertinent technology changes to track. To help educators stay on top of changes in technology, the International Society for Technology in Education has compiled 5 of the most important trends likely to impact education in the 2017-2018 school year.
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Swiss National Science Foundation via Science Daily
Children in the German-speaking part of Switzerland who utilize extended education offerings in the first two years of primary school generally perform no better in school than other children, an project has found. Overall, the research shows that all-day schools do not fulfil all the expectations people place in them.
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Education World
The shaggy-haired boy at table six usually loved to write. Most days, he could barely stop tapping his pencil through the mini-lesson before he excitedly bent over his own writing creation. Today, he sat with arms crossed and hair slung over his teary eyes. His notebook remained resolutely closed. Recently, he got the distressing news that his father was being deported. Suddenly, his identity shook in the face of such a life-changing event. He struggled to focus on work that had once been so important to him. He was no longer sure of his place with his father so far away.
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By: Brian Stack (commentary)
 This summer, my 9-year-old Cameron had a blast at summer camp with some of his friends from our local Cub Scout Pack. As with any good summer camp program, the experienced was personalized, and it was both meaningful and relevant for all. It is unfortunate that all children don't have the opportunity to participate in summer camp, but perhaps there are ways for schools to bring the best of summer camp into the programming that is available for all children.
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The Atlantic
When it comes to judging a school's quality, what matters most? A new poll suggests the American public puts a premium on offerings outside of traditional academics, including career-focused education, developing students’ interpersonal skills, and providing after-school programs and mental-health care. At the same time, even as local schools were generally viewed favorably in the national survey, parents said they would consider taking advantage of vouchers for private or religious schools if the price was right.
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Chalkbeat
As the Great Recession was sending economic shockwaves through the country, it was also hurting student learning, according to a new study. Using a huge data set that included over 95 percent of the country's public school students, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania found that each year students spent in school during the recession hurt their reading and math test scores.
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| | FEDERAL ADVOCACY AND POLICY |
Education Week
The Every Student Succeeds Act covers a vast swath of federal education policy, from testing to teacher-training to turning around struggling schools. But language tucked into the 400-plus-page statute also has another, less-expected goal: informing students and parents about "the harms of copyright piracy." Wording that urges school officials and parents to explain the importance of preventing the illicit use of copyrighted material is found in three sections of the law, alongside more predictable school policy decrees on teaching and learning.
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Los Angeles Times
The concept sounds simple: take a good school, figure out what's happening to make students successful, and re-create those elements to spread the success somewhere else. Replication, as this process is called, has become a buzzword with charter schools nationwide as they expand their networks on the promise of bringing high achievement at existing schools to new ones.
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U.S. News & World Report
Students in Houston will be able to eat meals at school for free during the 2017-2018 school year. On Wednesday, the Houston Independent School District, a public school system that serves around 215,000 students, said it had received approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Texas Department of Agriculture to waive an application process needed to obtain free breakfast and lunch in the wake of the powerful storm Harvey.
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NAESP
Membership in the National Association of Elementary School Principals helps principals connect with peers and grow their leadership potential. As a volunteer you can: Forge connections with colleagues and peers; enhance your leadership skills; and share your expertise and leverage the expertise of others.
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NAESP
Special education law is an important — and complicated—area of education law. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act creates a host of duties for school officials that are masked in an "alphabet soup" of acronyms (e.g., FAPE, LRE, IEP, FBA, etc.). The myriad of requirements and processes can be difficult to manage and apply.
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