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| | LATEST NEWS FOR PRINCIPALS |
The Associated Press
Guess what, kids? No homework. Really. All year. A small but growing number of elementary schools and individual teachers are doing away with the after-school chore to allow kids more time to play, participate in activities, spend time with families, read and sleep. There's been pushback against homework from parents in recent years who say their children's time is monopolized by other activities, said Steven Geis, president of the National Elementary School Principals' Association.
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Education Week
A new study suggests that schools districts take a closer look at the principal job if they want to get to the root cause of teacher turnover and find ways to prevent it. Susan Burkhauser, institutional research associate at Loyola Marymount University, outlines her study in a paper titled "How Much Do School Principals Matter When It Comes to Teacher Working Conditions?," published in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. Burkhauser bases her work in part on the intuitive assumptions that working conditions are a prime factor in a teacher's decision to stay or go and that principals may be in the best position to shape working conditions. Principals, she says, can influence a teacher's perception of the job by changing actual conditions — by offering more academic and moral support, more opportunities to develop teaching skills and advance their careers, more say in school policy and the like.
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The Hechinger Report
All learning should be personal — we are teaching individual students, after all — but when advocates talk about "personalized learning" they are often describing programs and teaching methods that look unlike the typical school. They envision school as a place where students have more control over their own studies; where they are not constrained by age or grade level; where children can move through subjects as fast or slowly as they need. Educators, researchers and advocates still quibble over the precise definition of personalized learning, but most agree on this much: In these classrooms teachers don't pass out identical worksheets and tests to every student.
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By: Erick Herrmann
 Discussions about language instruction for English learners (and for all students) have revolved around the need to teach students the language of academia, the language of college and career readiness, and language needed to be successful in our ever-changing society. Within this discussion, the topic of vocabulary often comes to the surface. Vocabulary is one key component of academic language, and one with which teachers are very familiar.
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Education Week
An after-school program for elementary students that focuses on social and emotional learning is having an impact on absenteeism and student behavior in a school district in South Carolina. WINGS for kids has been working to provide students with these skills since 1996. But obtaining district-level data on issues like the program's effect on absenteeism and behavior problems had proven difficult until now. Through the program, students meet five days a week for three hours a day. They spend part of the time working on learning objectives related to social and emotional health.
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Phys.org
Children who enter reception with poor English language skills — whether it's their first language or an additional language — are more likely to have social, emotional and behavioral difficulties in later years, finds a new study co-authored by UCL and Royal Holloway and funded by Wellcome. The research, published today in Child Development, found the cognitive advantages of bilingualism tend to help with academic achievement only if English skills are sufficient at school entry for the child to be fully engaged.
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District Administration Magazine
Using tablets, apps and YouTube videos, students at Greenwood Elementary School in the Wayzata Public Schools in Minnesota have added new virtual elements to paintings and other artwork, so their masterpieces include videos that not only get them engaged, but also help them better understand ideas behind the art itself. It's a technology called augmented reality, which overlays views of the real world with informative graphics, video, sound or even GPS data.
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eSchool News
Researchers at the University of Missouri College of Education have developed a one-item readiness test that can accurately predict kindergartners' success in school. Researchers said they developed the test because kindergarten is an important developmental year for children–they will face many challenges and risk falling behind if they are not successful early in the year.
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Reuters
More than a fifth U.S. school districts lack comprehensive plans to respond to natural disasters, epidemic diseases or other emergencies, a new report finds. While almost 80 percent of school districts nationwide have plans to help students and staff with special needs during an emergency situation, only about 68 percent have protocols to reunite children with their families after disaster strikes, according to the report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Roughly 69 percent of school districts have procedures set up to cope with pandemic influenza or other infectious disease outbreaks and to offer mental health support to students, faculty and staff after a crisis, the report also found.
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THE Journal
Half of "chronically absent" students are found in just four percent of the country's school districts. Thirty districts in Texas and California alone account for 10 percent of the country's total chronically absent kids. About 500 districts have chronic absenteeism that surpasses 30 percent — more than twice the national average. The data cited here isn't new. It was shared in June by the Office for Civil Rights, which compiled it from a 2013-2014 survey completed by nearly every school district and school in the United States.
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The Atlantic
Little children shouldn't be going to school in the same building as teenagers who might bully them and make them unsafe. That was one line of argument that parents, educators and community members laid out against school space-sharing arrangements several years ago, when former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was working to shoehorn hundreds of new schools into existing buildings.
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K-12 TechDecisions
Digital literacy is a term that encompasses the practical skills, knowledge and behaviors people need to effectively use various digital devices, which today includes many networked devices like computers, smartphones and tablets. The OECD and the European Commission prefer the term "digital competence", which adds in problem-solving skills.
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UPI
If American children were to race children from other countries, chances are, they'd lose. Badly. A review of children's fitness levels in 50 countries around the world suggests the youth of America are not nearly as healthy as they could be, according to researchers at Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario and the University of North Dakota. The United States landed 47th out of 50 nations when comparing fitness results among the world's children, with Canada coming in 19th — a far better result than their neighbors to the south — based on data in the study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
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Edutopia (commentary)
Educators face challenges, funding issues and problems beyond their control. But for each student and family, it's all about the relationship they will have with their child's teacher.
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Over 125,000 Copies Sold
Share with your staff the teaching system that transforms classrooms!
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Education World (commentary)
We're all familiar with the headlines. Year after year, every back-to-school season, districts make national news for having to go to extreme lengths to recruit teachers to fill vacancies — some which can reach into the hundreds for larger districts. In other words, we're all aware that our country suffers from a chronic teacher shortage. But just how bad is it? According to a recently published report from the Learning Policy Institute, the numbers behind teacher supply and demand in the U.S. indicate that we're only a little short from being in the middle of a full-blown crisis.
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| | FEDERAL ADVOCACY AND POLICY |
The Christian Science Monitor
The walls of a prison have a way of giving people new perspective on opportunity. That held true for Secretary of Education John King Jr., on a recent visit to Limestone Correctional Facility in Harvest, Alaska, where he talked with inmates during his "Opportunity Across America" tour. "I was struck by how clear they are about the role of education, both in how they got to where they are and in how it will make their lives better when they get back," Secretary King said at a breakfast for reporters hosted by the Monitor in Washington.
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Politico
ESSA and English language learners: The Education Department is out with new guidelines on how states and school districts can better serve students whose first language isn't English. English language learners are estimated to be nearly 10 percent of the student population nationwide, the department says. The federal guidelines explain how states and districts can spend money through Title III — which provides federal funds for English language learners and immigrant students — under the Every Student Succeeds Act. Districts have historically had to spend their funds on professional development and providing language instruction educational programs.
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EdTech Magazine
With a little help from the U.S. Census Bureau, teachers can now start creating future statisticians and data analysts as early as kindergarten. Recently, the Census Bureau announced that they had revamped the Statistics in Schools program with hundreds of new activities and resources available for the 2016-2017 school year. The program was originally launched in 2000 (under the name Census in Schools) with the aim of teaching kids about the once-every-decade census, and the importance of being counted.
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The Christian Science Monitor
When faced with the choice between feeding a hungry child or following your boss's orders, which do you choose? Stacy Koltiska, a cafeteria worker in the Canon-McMillan, Pennsylvania, school district, was faced with that very decision, when ordered not to give a hot lunch to a little boy with a negative balance on his lunch account. She ultimately followed orders, but quit her job shortly thereafter in protest of the school's policy. "God is love, and we should love one another and be kind," Koltiska told The Washington Post. "There's enough wealth in this world that no child should go hungry, especially in school. To me this is just wrong."
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Education DIVE
When a student in the District 5 Schools of Spartanburg County in South Carolina couldn't make it to class last year but she didn't want to miss out on group work, her peers included her via Google Hangout. This year, some students are planning a field trip to the international space station and others recently Skyped with an author in Europe whose book they read for class. Teachers are increasingly looking for opportunities to connect their students to far-flung people and places through the web, in part because of a 1:1 device rollout and its accompanying change in educational philosophy.
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NAESP
Writing for Principal is a great way to help other principals while giving you fresh insights into your own professional development. NAESP is currently seeking articles for the March/April issue, with the theme "Technology for All." The issue will provide best practices for social media and technology use, with an eye toward principals as innovators and new instructional practices. Articles can focus on digital badging, professional learning networks and addressing the technology divide in rural schools and schools with high needs. The deadline for copy is Nov. 4. For more details, visit www.naesp.org/writing.
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NAESP
Celebrate achievement in your school with the President's Education Awards Program. Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, in partnership with NAESP and the National Association of Secondary School Principals, PEAP offers principals a way to recognize and honor students' dedication to learning.
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