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| | LATEST NEWS FOR PRINCIPALS |
By: Brian Stack
 American schools today face issues that are unprecedented in our nation's history. Among the top issues are class size, poverty, family factors, technology, bullying, student attitudes and behaviors, parental involvement, student health, funding and No Child Left Behind. For those of us who have been in the profession for 10 years or more, we have certainly seen how these issues have come to consume so many parts of our job as school principals.
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The New York Times
The wounds of segregation were still raw in the 1970s. With only rare exceptions, African-American children had nowhere near the same educational opportunities as whites. The civil rights movement, school desegregation and the War on Poverty helped bring a measure of equity to the playing field. Today, despite some setbacks along the way, racial disparities in education have narrowed significantly. By 2012, the test-score deficit of black 9-, 13- and 17-year-olds in reading and math had been reduced as much as 50 percent compared with what it was 30 to 40 years before.
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Medical News Today
To learn about the world around them, young children depend on information provided by others. But that's not always the best strategy: kids will sometimes take everything grown-ups say at face value, even if they're unreliable. New research shows that children are not as gullible as we might think — and that's especially true for those who have a good understanding of what's going on inside someone else's head. In a paper recently published in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology, researchers from Concordia University and the University of Ottawa show that even young children can be selective in whom they prefer to learn from.
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The Conversation
Illiteracy is a global concern. Research suggests that 175 million young people, largely from poor countries and regions, lack basic literacy skills. This has wide-ranging negative effects, both for individuals and society at large. Illiteracy has been shown to contribute to poor health. A World Literacy Foundation study estimated that illiteracy costs the global economy more than $1 trillion a year through lost job opportunities. But our research suggests that there is one simple way to equip your children for a life of literacy from their infancy: share picture books with them.
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Scholastic Administrator Magazine (commentary)
Kelly Glos, a contributor for Scholastic Administrator magazine, writes: "Today's students are digital natives; they don't do analog. How can we expect to engage them with a textbook when they can use the Internet to find answers in a matter of seconds? In my district, when confronting the need for new history textbooks, we realized it was time for a new approach. We decided to make a completely digital switch by using ABC-CLIO Solutions, and the benefits have far outweighed any of our initial concerns. For those on the fence about making a similar switch, I've outlined five key reasons to embrace digital textbooks for history courses."
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Science Weekly Magazine
Science Weekly Magazine
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NPR
If you made it past the headline, you're likely a student, concerned parent, teacher or, like me, a nerd nostalgist who enjoys basking in the distant glow of Homework Triumphs Past (second-grade report on Custer's Last Stand, nailed it!). Whoever you are, you're surely hoping for some clarity in the loud, perennial debate over whether U.S. students are justifiably exhausted and nervous from too much homework — even though some international comparisons suggest they're sitting comfortably at the average.
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District Administration Magazine
Some districts can't find or hire music teachers while others struggle to buy and maintain instruments. Many administrators, meanwhile, must cut music classes to prepare students for testing. Still, schools large and small have kept the music playing with innovative grants, online fundraising through sites like DonorsChoose.org, and by scouring their budgets for any available resources.
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Edutopia (commentary)
Elena Aguilar, a contributor for Edutopia, writes: "I want to introduce a strategy to cultivate emotional resilience by asking you to recall the movie, The Wizard of Oz. Remember the scene where Dorothy awakens in the land of Oz and everything is in color? I would like to offer you a strategy that might result in the same perspective shift in your classroom. This was what happened to me after applying this strategy during a hard year. After teaching elementary children for a number of years, I became a middle school teacher at a new school. I needed to quickly acquire a massive new skill set."
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eSchool News
Just 68 percent of grades 4-12 students in a recent survey said they have Wi-Fi access at school, though 96 percent of those same students have Wi-Fi access at home. The survey, released by Pearson and conducted on its behalf by Harris Poll, finds that while student ownership of mobile devices continues to increase, Wi-Fi connectivity at school lags behind home access. With increased ownership comes increased use. Use of both tablets and smartphones (at home, school or elsewhere) has risen across all grade levels.
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Medical Xpress
The digital age has given teens new platforms for cruelty: A social media prank intended to embarrass a classmate. Spreading online rumors about peers. Posting unflattering pictures of others. But at what point does teens being mean cross over to cyberbullying, and what should the consequences be? While many parents are concerned about cyberbullying, they are conflicted when it comes to actually defining it and determining appropriate punishments, according to today's report from University of Michigan's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health.
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The Atlantic (commentary)
The events have grabbed headlines and public attention, sparking what are now all too familiar debates in the United States about police overreach. In Raleigh, North Carolina, a water-balloon fight at Enloe High School, initiated as a senior-day prank, ended with eight teens arrested and two dozen police officers dispatched to the campus "to restore order." When a Virginia 4-year-old with ADHD threw a temper tantrum in his prekindergarten classroom late last year — allegedly throwing blocks and hitting and kicking his educators — the school's principal, according to reports, summoned a deputy assigned to the school, who then handcuffed the child and transported them in a squad car to the sheriff's office.
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eSchool News
Like every state, educators in North Carolina are struggling with complex demands around digital learning. In the era of personalized learning-meets-BYOD, and with a big push on 21st century skills, districts and education leaders can still feel pretty isolated as they work out where to go next. And conveying their needs to state legislators, who often have the power to regulate funding and set the pace for any statewide digital initiatives, can be yet another challenge.
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| | FEDERAL ADVOCACY AND POLICY |
Education Week
The federal government is careening toward a shutdown at the end of the month, thanks in part to an impasse in Congress over whether to fund Planned Parnethood. But most school districts, and many federal education programs, wouldn't feel an immediate pinch if the U.S. Department of Education and other agencies temporarily shut their doors. The two major exceptions: the Head Start program, an early-childhood program for low-income children funded through the Department of Health and Human Services and Impact Aid, the Education Department program that helps districts with a big federal presence (such as a military base or a Native American reservation).
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Education World
Many schools are reporting financial woes as a result of new federal nutrition rules pushed by The Agriculture Department in response to First Lady Michelle Obama's efforts to fight childhood obesity by promoting healthier choices in schools. According to school officials in schools throughout the nation, the new healthier options are far more costly and students are choosing not to eat them, creating financial losses that some say will cause them to go into education budgets.
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Education Week
Education research advocates took it as a hopeful sign in June when the U.S. House of Representatives' education appropriations panel marked up its first bill for education spending in six years. "And then we see it," said Juliane Baron, the government-relations director for the American Educational Research Association. "Be careful what you ask for. IES really took a hit." The Institute of Education Sciences, the U.S. Department of Education's research arm, faces a $10 million cut in the Senate bill and a whopping $164 million cut in the House appropriations measure, from its current fiscal year budget of $573.9 million. Coming on top of years of uncertain funding, the reductions could stymie the agency's recent attempts to bring a new and more diverse generation of education researchers into the field.
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U.S. News & World Report
After spending millions of dollars adopting and implementing the Common Core State Standards and aligned assessments, states are finally beginning to release preliminary results from the first round of tests administered to students last spring. But it's unclear whether the results will have any meaningful impact, as a growing number of states across the country are walking back their commitments to the tests and even to the standards themselves, a set of rigorous academic benchmarks adopted by 42 states and the District of Columbia.
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The Associated Press via Yahoo News
Seattle teachers have approved a labor contract between the union and its school district, officially ending a weeklong strike that had delayed the start of school for 53,000 students. The walkout began Sept. 9 in Washington state's largest school district and was suspended pending the outcome of Sunday's vote by the 5,000-member union. The sides had reached a tentative agreement, allowing the first day of school to begin.
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EdTech Magazine
The largest school system in the country will soon embark on a journey to offer computer science to every student in its district. Beginning next school year, the New York City Department of Education will launch a Computer Science for All program, which will reach "full implementation in all grade levels by 2025," according to a news release. The goal is to offer computer science courses for 1.1 million students, in elementary through high school, by 2025, which will cost approximately $81 million over the next 10 years.
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NAESP
Based on The Wallace Foundation 5 Key Practices, panelists will discuss what values, beliefs and personal dimensions they bring to their role as building administrators to meet the specific needs of their school. The behaviors that make a principal successful as they drive student learning, such as resilience, self-confidence, self-analysis, flexibility, situational awareness, relational awareness, positivity and mindfulness will be explored to drive student learning.
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NAESP
Just as teachers excel when they can recognize the diverse talents and needs of their students, principals are at their best recognizing the same in teachers. The September/October issue of Principal provides a "balanced approach" to teaching, and ensures principals maximize teacher effectiveness. Inside you'll find tools for teacher evaluations, classroom management strategies, and how to support "teacherpreneurs" at your school. Click here to read it online now.
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