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| | LATEST NEWS FOR PRINCIPALS |
Scholastic Administration Magazine
Being a principal today is about more than managing a building. It's about being an instructional leader at a time when education is rapidly changing and pressures are increasing. At a roundtable discussion hosted by the National Association of Elementary School Principals in Washington, D.C., in late October, four principals shared their thoughts with Scholastic Administrator on effective leadership, teacher support and what challenges are ahead for their schools.
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Education Week
PARCC announced that it will now offer states the option of buying parts of its testing system and choosing their own vendor. Previously, states could purchase only the entire system, and they had to use Pearson for test administration. The restructuring comes as testing plans for 2015-2016 show a dwindling number of states using PARCC's assessment. A new analysis by the Education Commission of the States lists only six states and the District of Columbia as planning to use PARCC this school year. Eleven states and the District of Columbia used it in 2014-2015.
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MindShift
The digital landscape of American childhood is in flux, according to surveys: Most children under the age of 8 now have access to mobile devices in their homes. In the last five years, children have spent less time watching television, but more time tapping on tablets and smartphones. And recently the American Academy of Pediatrics has softened its zero-screentime recommendation for children under 2.
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By: Douglas Magrath
 This article provides some helpful hints and suggestions to ESL instructors who wish to use modern techniques in teaching even though the class texts are of a more traditional nature. The learners need to move from language form to language function as soon as possible. Texts and materials using a grammar-based sequencing of lessons focused more on structure than on communication or realistic situations make this situation difficult.
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K-12 TechDecisions
Research suggests that video games offer a synthesis of both a growth mindset and zones of proximal development. There are over 180 million active gamers in the U.S. and the average gamer spends 13 hours a week playing games. Given that 99 percent of boys, 94 percent of girls, and 62 percent of teachers play video games, isn't it a relief knowing that they may actually be learning?
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Science Weekly Magazine
Science Weekly Magazine
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Education Next
Close to 5 million U.S. students — about 9 percent of public school enrollment — are ELLs. Three-quarters of them were born in the U.S. and are the children — or grandchildren — of immigrants, according to a Migration Policy Institute analysis of 2013 U.S. Census data. Nearly 80 percent of ELLs come from Spanish-speaking homes, but the rest may speak Chinese, Vietnamese, French/Haitian Creole, Arabic, or any one of hundreds of other languages. In Maine, the most common language spoken by ELLs is Somali. South Carolina's second most-common language, after Spanish, is Russian. Illinois schools enroll students from families that speak Arabic, Polish, Chinese and Urdu.
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The Atlantic
At a middle school in California, the state testing in math was underway via the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium exam. A girl pointed to the problem on the computer screen and asked "What do I do?" The proctor read the instructions for the problem and told the student: "You need to explain how you got your answer." The girl threw her arms up in frustration and said, "Why can't I just do the problem, enter the answer and be done with it?"
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Education Week
A little known fact to many outside the K-12 education space is how often America's public school principals have their sleep interrupted by the day's burning issues, unresolved challenges, and persistent worries about the needs of their students and school communities. Over the past two decades, the responsibilities placed upon principals have grown, and yet their role has never been more vital to our students' future and that of our nation. One of the questions that nag all school leaders is whether our nation and its schools can meet the current national challenge of providing all students with the skills they will need to thrive in our rapidly changing economy and society. Principals know the proverbial buck stops in large measure at their school doors.
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NPR
At 7:30 a.m. Monday through Friday, you'll find Mark Gaither standing on Gough Street in southeast Baltimore. He's outside Wolfe Street Academy, the neighborhood elementary school where he's the principal. Gaither has a huge umbrella in case it rains, and thick gloves for when it snows. He's here each morning to greet students and families as they come to school — which should make for at least 225 "good mornings." This daily greeting is one part of the school's strategy to fix chronic absence and turn around what was once a failing school. Absenteeism will be front and center today at the U.S. Department of Education, which hosts an online summit on strategies to combat chronic absence.
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HealthDay News via WebMD
Children born with heart defects often do worse in school than their peers, a new study finds. Researchers led by Dr. Matthew Oster of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta analyzed end-of-grade test results for third-grade students in North Carolina public schools between 1998 and 2003. Compared to other children, those with a congenital heart defect were 40 percent less likely to meet reading proficiency standards, 20 percent less likely to meet math standards, and 50 percent less likely to meet standards in both subjects, the study found. The researchers also found that 2.8 percent of children with heart defects were held back in third-grade, compared with 1.9 percent of other children.
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Science Alert
How old should our children be before they start a formal education? That's the question asked by new research from academics at Stanford University in the US, and it turns out that it might be better for our youngsters if they started school later — a whole year later in the case of the Danish children involved in the study. Researchers used surveys filled out by tens of thousands of parents in Denmark, where youngsters typically start kindergarten at the age of six. Those who started aged seven showed lower levels of inattention and hyperactivity, factors known to be influential in improving self-regulation, which in turn is linked to academic achievement. The effects persisted up until age 11.
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Graceland University is ranked #5 in the country for Online Masters of Education programs by US News and World Report. We have a 98% graduation rate and 97% would recommend our program to a friend. We have 4 programs to meet the needs of practically any teacher.
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The Atlantic
Recently, the Los Angeles Times reported on what appears to be the latest example of restorative classroom-discipline strategies going awry. Alongside a photo that features a scowling police officer, the article describes "another day of distraction" that included a girl getting harassed and a boy being offensively defiant with a teacher. Over the past decade, particularly the last few years, the trend in school discipline has been toward restorative justice — which emphasizes authentic dialogue, mutual understanding and communal responsibility — and away from "zero tolerance," which critics argue discriminates against nonwhite students and exacerbates the "school-to-prison pipeline."
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District Administration Magazine
When Superintendent Bryan Caples considered a few years ago increasing the energy efficiency of his schools in the Palermo Union School District in northern California to save money, "the first thing I thought of was to upgrade the air conditioning," he says. But an energy audit found the district would reap the biggest savings by upgrading its predominantly fluorescent lighting to light-emitting diodes. That relatively simple step was going to "get us more bang for the buck," says Caples.
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| | FEDERAL ADVOCACY AND POLICY |
The Washington Post
A national program that pumped a record $7 billion into failing schools — and became one of U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan's signature policies — has yielded mixed results, according to a new federal analysis. Students in about two-thirds of the schools studied posted gains on math and reading tests, but one-third showed no improvements or even slid backward. Schools that participated in the program the longest showed the strongest improvements in math and reading. The average high school graduation rate also increased for schools that received School Improvement Grants.
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U.S. News & World Report (commentary)
Every two years, education policy wonks like me wait with bated breath for the release of data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The data allows us to compare progress across states, see whether the country has made gains and argue about what it all means. This year's release generated even more anticipation and discussion than usual: It was the first National Assessment of Educational Progress administration after states began implementing the Common Core State Standards, and national scores dropped in fourth- and eighth-grade math for the first time ever. In addition, scores in eighth-grade reading also fell.
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"The Fundamental 5 improves instruction. The power of these practices will transform classrooms and schools," E. Don Brown, NASSP past president. Order now at Amazon.com
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Education Week
Affordable Internet service and cost-effective access to related infrastructure remain major hurdles for schools, although access to fiber-optic cables and faster wireless networks is improving, according to a new survey of school district leaders. "While progress is happening, policymakers and educators will need to keep their eyes focused on continued investments in robust, reliable education networks ... to enable digital learning and address issues of digital equity," Keith Krueger, the CEO of the Consortium for School Networking, writes in the group's third annual "E-rate and Infrastructure" report.
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The Christian Science Monitor
The topic of school safety evokes a visceral response from parents, teachers, administrators and lawmakers. It's the subject of Gallup polls, nonprofit mission statements, and countless studies, all attempting to make campuses and schools more secure. For several southern California schools, the latest attempt comes in the form of biometrics. The Antelope Valley Schools Transportation Agency, which serves four school districts in the Lancaster, Calif. area, is testing iris scanning devices on three special needs buses this semester through December. It's meant to ensure that no student is accidentally left on the bus.
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NAESP
In honor of Connected Educators Month, NAESP held a Twitter chat on innovative school leadership. Educators from across the Twitterverse joined to offer their advice on what an innovative principal should and could look like. Don't worry if you missed out, you can find plenty of takeaways from the conversation in the Storify below.
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NAESP
Congratulations to the following individuals that have been nominated for the office of NAESP Vice President in the 2016 spring election!: Eric S. Cardwell, principal of Besser Elementary School in Alpena, Michigan; and David N. Wick, principal of Columbia Falls Junior High School in Columbia Falls, Montana.
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ZipKrooz™ brings zip line-like adventure to the playground in an exciting, inclusive and safe way!
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| Math Problem solving contests for teams of up to 35 students in grades 4 through 8.
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