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| | LATEST NEWS FOR PRINCIPALS |
Education Week
Elementary school teachers have generally positive views of the Common Core State Standards, despite concerns of too-high expectations for students and too-little support for teachers, especially regarding assessments, new findings say. The nonprofit Center on Education Policy, based in Washington, D.C., conducted five focus groups composed of K-5 teachers in the spring and summer of 2016. Teachers from five school districts in Illinois, Delaware, Wisconsin and Utah — states that have adopted the common core but use different assessments — were included. In all, 26 teachers from across elementary grades were interviewed.
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By: Cait Harrison (commentary)
 The U.S. is facing a shortage of teachers in its K-12 schools, and the situation doesn't seem to be improving much. Teacher shortages across many districts became a hot topic in 2015, and a new study details the causes of the shortage — primarily, teachers leaving the profession and fewer studying to become educators in the first place. Between 2009 and 2014, teacher education program enrollments dropped from 691,000 to 451,000 — a 35 percent reduction.
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Education Week
The National Education Association wants to see states and school districts make serious changes under the Every Student Succeeds Act, not just put in a few tweaks to the accountability plans that were already on the books under the No Child Left Behind Act and its waivers. The union is especially concerned about places where leaders "believe that not much change needs to happen," said Donna Harris-Aikens, the union's director of policy and practice in a call with reporters.
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The Conversation (commentary)
The American school system puts students in grades based on age. However, for a large number of students, being with same-age peers in the classroom does not work. A recent report from Johns Hopkins University shows that about two out of every seven children are ready for a higher-grade curriculum. These children are not learning something new each day, and are likely bored in class. This has serious implications: Research has shown that greater intellectual stimulation is important for helping talented kids achieve their full potential.
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Edutopia (commentary)
Marissa King, a contributor for Edutopia, writes: "Emojis are more mainstream than ever. The Oxford English Dictionary named the Face With Tears of Joy emoji the word of the year for 2015, presidential candidates are asking for feedback in emojis, and the appearance of new emojis is considered news by major media outlets. Although looking up emoji definitions is relatively simple, I often turn to my students for more nuanced explanations. After a bit of laughter, my students patiently demonstrate the multiple uses for a single emoji, help me decode emoji-laden Instagram comments, and advise me on murky racial or gender implications."
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By: Savanna Flakes (commentary)
 Robert Marzano's six-step approach to supporting students with vocabulary acquisition and retention is still one of my favorite approaches to teaching vocabulary. After teachers have sorted vocabulary terms into the three tiers and determined which words merit more attention in upcoming text, I encourage teachers to think about how they will differentiate instruction for learners who will need explicit and specialized vocabulary instruction.
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MindShift
As most parents know, kids respond emotionally to the grades they receive — and well beyond the jubilation that goes with an A+ or the despair that accompanies a D. When Jessie, an eighth-grader, got an uncharacteristically low score on a Spanish test, she felt not only embarrassed — "because I'd never done that badly before" — but lousy as well: "I didn't feel as good about myself," she said.
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[FreshGrade Education Inc.]
In this eBook, leaders in education share their best practices and experiences with portfolios and assessment. You'll learn how to save time for educators, empower students to own their learning, implement innovative assessment practices, enhance student outcomes, and actively engage parents in the learning journey. EdTech RoundUp described FreshGrade as uniquely combining student-led portfolios with flexible, custom assessment and parent engagement in one. FreshGrade is used by teachers, parents, and students in all 50 states and in more than 70 countries around the world.
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K-12 TechDecisions
While laws and policies regarding criminal background checks for school volunteers differ for every state and school district, screening is fast becoming a prerequisite to volunteering at schools throughout the country. Some schools screen each and every volunteer who walks through their doors. Others still screen just a portion of their volunteers — usually those working directly with students. But even those institutions that screen their entire volunteer pool using the most comprehensive background checks could still be vulnerable.
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By: Brian Stack (commentary)
 The Nation's Alissa Quart recently put the spotlight on teacher salaries in her article, "Teachers are Working for Uber Just to Keep a Foothold in the Middle Class." Quart highlighted Matt Barry, a public high school history teacher in the suburbs of San Jose, California, who at 32 has taken a part-time job with Uber to support his wife Nicole and their soon-to-be-born child. It is not a new problem that teachers have looked to second jobs to supplement their income.
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New York Magazine
Why don't school schedules align with work schedules? It's a question working parents ask themselves all the time, and one examined in a new report from the Center for American Progress. What the report found was that most schools close "several hours" before parents would normally expect to finish working; that most schools are closed about 29 workdays throughout the school year; and that most important school events, such as parent-teacher conferences, are scheduled during common work hours (weekdays).
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eSchool News
The need for digital learning content in classrooms is nothing new, but teachers, parents and students are becoming more vocal in their desire to provide or have access to such materials outside of the school day or school year. Deloitte's inaugural 2016 Digital Education Survey surveyed teachers, students and parents to uncover how technology is changing the concept of the classroom.
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THE Journal
Despite widespread acknowledgment of the advantages of mobile computing, students in nearly one-third of classrooms do not have regular access to mobile devices in the classroom — this according to exclusive data released to THE Journal by the national education nonprofit Project Tomorrow. Project Tomorrow has been collecting data on the use of technology in American schools on a massive scale for more than a decade. Since 2003, the organization's Speak Up Research Project has involved more than 4.5 million participants — teachers, parents, students, administrators and technology professionals — from more than 35,000 schools representing all 50 states.
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| | FEDERAL ADVOCACY AND POLICY |
Education Week
The U.S. Department of Education released its long-awaited final rules on teacher preparation. The rules, first proposed in 2014, aim to hold teacher-training programs accountable for the performance of their graduates, and they make it mandatory for states to provide aspiring teachers a way of pre-evaluating programs. Under the rules, states will be required each year to rate all of its traditional, alternative and distance prep programs as either effective, at-risk or as low-performing. They will have to provide additional support to programs rated as low-performing.
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NJ Advance Media
With a new federal education law set to take effect next school year, Gov. Chris Christie's administration has the chance to revise New Jersey's school rating system just before he leaves office. But that doesn't mean Christie should take advantage of that opportunity, a Democratic state lawmaker said. Sen. Patrick Diegnan Jr., D-Middlesex, suggested New Jersey seek an extension from the U.S. Department of Education that would allow the state to submit its new school accountability plan after the next governor takes office in 2018.
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Miami News Record
Oklahoma school districts have been struggling to fill more than 500 teaching vacancies at the start of the new school year, according to a new survey from the Oklahoma State School Boards Association. Schools in Oklahoma are in such desperate need of teachers that more than 900 emergency certificates have been approved by the State Board of Education since July, according to the Oklahoma State Board of Education.
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Youth Today
The Barstow Unified School District in California's Mojave Desert has more than its fair share of challenges, starting with aging schools and infrastructure. "Some schools are 60 years old. Our classroom technology is outdated, and our electrical, sewer and water lines are deteriorating," said Superintendent Jeff Malan in a letter to parents in April. According to Malan, the district also has a high rate of poverty — eight in 10 students qualify for free or reduced-price school meals. About half the district's 6,000 students are Hispanic, and many are English language learners, he said.
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The New York Times
Family workers carrying caseloads of 256 children at a time. A girl who had transferred to four different schools, one of them twice, by age 11. Attendance reports from multiple agencies, but with none held responsible for making sure that students actually went to school. These are some of the findings in a report on the obstacles faced by homeless children in New York schools that will be released by the city's Independent Budget Office. The report, which draws largely on data from the 2013-2014 school year, vividly maps out just how difficult it is for students who live in shelters to get an education.
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St. Louis Post-Dispatch
For 80 years, teachers educated St. Louis' children at Wilkinson School. But amid declining enrollment, the handsome multistory brick school building suffered in 2008 the same fate as so many schools in St. Louis: It closed. Now, a new plan would return teachers to Wilkinson, but this time as tenants. In an effort to keep teachers from migrating to suburban districts, St. Louis Public Schools Real Estate Director Walker Gaffney said school officials sought proposals this summer to turn school buildings into affordable housing for teachers. The district invited developers to present concepts for one or more such projects.
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NAESP
Each October, National Association of Elementary School Principals, the National Association of Secondary School Principals, and the American Federation of School Administrators invite communities nationwide to celebrate the critical role that principals play in school and student success. And as we do every year, we have a number of activities planned to commemorate the occasion and to spotlight principal leadership among the education community and the general public.
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NAESP
Future Ready Schools is a bold effort to maximize digital learning opportunities and help school districts move quickly toward preparing students for success in college, a career and citizenship. Through a systemic planning process, FRS will help any district develop the human and technological capacity needed to personalize learning. With more than 2,000 districts already signing the Future Ready District Pledge, the Alliance for Excellent Education and the U.S. Department of Education are leading this effort alongside a vast coalition of organizations such as NAESP and NASSP. This webinar takes place Thursday, Oct. 20, 3:30 - 4:30 p.m. ET.
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