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| | LATEST NEWS FOR PRINCIPALS |
eSchool News
Eight new standards for supervisors of school principals, covering topics such as instructional leadership and meeting the needs of diverse learners, aim to guide supervisors as they help those principals improve their effectiveness in an evolving role. The standards are supported by The Wallace Foundation and were released by the Council of Chief State School Officers. A team of educators from across the nation spent more than a year developing the standards for a position long focused on bureaucratic compliance but now increasingly becoming critical to developing outstanding school principals who can improve teaching and learning.
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Connected Principals (commentary)
Richard Bruford, a contributor for Connected Principals blog, writes: "Hindsight is a great thing. How many times have we said, as school leaders, I wish I knew that beforehand or I wish I was prepared or trained for that? Probably too many to mention. It is, therefore, pleasing to see that more and more programs are being developed to support new and aspiring school leaders. In this context, school leader pertains to any person holding a formal leadership position within their school and has responsibility for leading and managing staff. I deliberately say staff, as school leadership involves working with a wide array of people, not just teachers."
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The Washington Post
Common Core math has sparked a great deal of contention across the country in the past few years. It has its supporters, those who say that it teaches students to better understand mathematical processes. They also so that many problems parents cite with Common Core math stem not from the standards themselves but from poor teacher training. Critics, though, say the standards throw out proven computational techniques in favor of overly complex methods and wind up confusing students. Some parents and educators have also expressed concern that written math materials for young students are sometimes at a reading level above students' understanding, thus impeding their ability to stay on track with math.
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EdTech Magazine
Touting itself as the "largest learning event in history," the Hour of Code is gearing up for its 2015 kickoff, and millions of students are waiting on their moment to shine in front of a keyboard. The one-hour computer programming activity is all about exposing learners — old and new — to computer science. Along the way, event organizers hope to close the gender gap in the computer science industry. "Once students see what they create right before their eyes, they're empowered to keep going," according to the event's brochure.
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THE Journal
Most K-12 teachers involved in the transition to digital curriculum spend between two and five hours a week searching for digital resources for their lessons. Slightly fewer than half use digital content only a quarter to half of their time. And two thirds of schools and districts report that they've added new positions to deal with the expansion of the use of digital resources. Those are some of the findings in an extensive survey undertaken recently by the Learning Counsel to understand how schools are transitioning to the use of digital learning materials. The counsel is a for-profit organization that consults with schools — in both K-12 and higher ed — on the use of digital content in education.
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Science Weekly Magazine
Science Weekly Magazine
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MindShift
Putting off work that needs to get done is perhaps one of the most common human experiences. Adults do it and kids do it, but delaying important tasks too frequently can cause anxiety and negative feelings about one's self and one's ability to finish work. Cycles of delay can be very disempowering, and in extreme cases can be detrimental to a person's life. Many students put off work they aren't excited to do, and over time develop poor study habits that affect them in the long-term.
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By: Archita Datta Majumdar
 School administrators, teachers and parents are increasingly concerned about the safety of their students and want to explore all opportunities to improve the existing security and communication systems in place. There have been too many campus incidents recently to remain complacent anymore, especially when it comes to emergency preparedness. It is imperative to develop the protocol for daily and emergency operations so tragic events like Sandy Hook do not recur.
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NPR
Every morning, the familiar routine plays out in hundreds of thousands of classrooms: A teacher looks out over the desks, taking note of who's in their seats and who isn't. On any given day, maybe there are one or two empty chairs. One here, one there. And that all goes into the school's daily attendance rate. But here's what that morning ritual doesn't show: That empty desk? It might be the same one that was empty last week or two weeks ago. The desk of a student who has racked up five, 10, 20 absences this year. It's called chronic absence. The official definition: missing more than 10 percent of the school year — just two days a month.
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The Washington Post
Mya Alford dreams of studying chemical engineering in college, but the high school junior is at a disadvantage: Last year, her chemistry teacher at Pittsburgh's Westinghouse Academy quit just weeks after school started, and the class was taught by a substitute who, as Alford put it, "didn't know chemistry." The year before, there was no permanent biology teacher until December. Students at Westinghouse, a high-poverty school in one of Pittsburgh's roughest neighborhoods, often see a rotating cast of substitutes, Alford said. "You're looking at test scores," Alford said of the school's low performance on state standardized tests in math, science and reading.
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eSchool News
A few years ago, many school districts jumped on the iPad bandwagon, when they were still brand new. The fact is they were easy to justify for a purchase of a shared cart since the Apple app store had so many wonderful applications for remediation, practice and extension. These districts purchased the first iPad, which did not mirror and, believe it or not, had no built-in camera. Other districts waited for the second version to be released, which did have a camera and could be mirrored via Apple TV or the Reflector app, but only purchased the model with 16GB of RAM.
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ADDitude Magazine
If your child has been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, one of your top priorities is finding a school that matches his learning style. It may seem like a scavenger hunt, but armed with the right tools, you can find the prize: a school that understands ADHD. The key to finding the right school is to start early and to do your research. If you know what to look for in a school — and the right questions to ask — you'll be up to the challenge. Here, we tell you everything you need to know to find the right school for your ADHD child. Consider it a little help with your homework.
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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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Edutopia (commentary)
Think about your school district's professional development and all of the resources that constantly accompany all of that learning. Where can you go to get the materials from the learning that was last week? Last month? A few months ago? Last year? The year before that? If all of these answers are different (or if you don't have all the answers), somewhat of a problem exists.
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CNBC
Google, Microsoft and Apple have been competing for years in the very lucrative education technology market. For the first time, Google has taken a huge lead over its rivals. Chromebooks now make up more than half of all devices in U.S. classrooms, up from less than 1 percent in 2012, according to a new report from Futuresource Consulting. To analysts, this comes as a big surprise. "While it was clear that Chromebooks had made progress in education, this news is, frankly, shocking," said Forrester analyst J.P. Gownder. "Chromebooks made incredibly quick inroads in just a couple of years, leaping over Microsoft and Apple with seeming ease.
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The Huffington Post
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is the most commonly diagnosed mental disorder among children in the United States — and a new analysis suggests that diagnoses are on the rise. Between 2003 and 2011, the prevalence of ADHD diagnoses jumped by 43 percent among children between the ages of 10 and 14 and by 52 percent among 15- to 17-year-olds, according to parents who responded to a national survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although the overall rates remained highest among white children, the new analysis of the survey data, published in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, revealed that a growing number of Hispanic and black children are being diagnosed with the disorder.
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| | FEDERAL ADVOCACY AND POLICY |
Education Week
For the past quarter century, federal education policy has been moving in one direction: toward standards-based education redesign, a greater reliance on standardized tests and bigger role for Washington when it comes to holding schools accountable for student results. President Barack Obama reversed course with the stroke of a pen Thursday, putting states and districts back at the wheel when it comes to teacher evaluation, standards, school turnarounds and accountability, through a new iteration of the five-decade old Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
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Education Week
Amid the rush of news regarding the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, you may have forgotten the ongoing saga surrounding the federal budget. Earlier this year, Congress struck a temporary deal to fund the government and prevent it from shutting down. But that deal runs out on Friday, Dec. 11. It's not at all clear that congressional budget negotiators are close to striking an omnibus budget deal. Without such a deal, Congress would have to once again pass a short-term spending plan, known as a continuing resolution, to fund the government and avert a partial shutdown. So what are the details, and where do things stand for K-12?
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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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The Christian Science Monitor
Across Minnesota, the number of native American kids heading to college is on the rise. The reading and math scores of black students are catching up to those of whites. Low-income students, kids whose native language isn't English, and kids with disabilities are meeting the higher expectations teachers have been setting for them. The state — a high performer by many education measures — still faces many academic gaps between groups of students. But it is well on its way toward a goal it set in 2012 to cut those disparities in half by 2017.
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The New York Times
Amid growing criticism that New York City is demanding too little improvement from its lowest-performing schools, the Department of Education released a list of the education targets that schools in Mayor Bill de Blasio's $400 million School Renewal Program are expected to meet. By adding a section devoted to Renewal benchmarks to each school's official Web page, the department made its goals easily accessible for the first time. It acted after days of headlines criticizing the Renewal program, as well as questions from the state's highest-ranking education official about its rigor.
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NJSpotlight
When North Bergen Superintendent George Solter looks around at his neighboring towns, he sees school districts similar to his own, with high poverty rates and disadvantaged students who desperately need extra resources to succeed. But he also sees one big difference: West New York, Union City and Jersey City are all Abbott districts with state-funded school budgets, while North Bergen's student population is considered not quite poor enough to merit that designation. The district is far below "adequacy," meaning its budget is too small too meet its educational needs as defined by a formula in the 2008 School Funding Reform Act.
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NAESP
Principals will celebrate the elimination of No Child Left Behind's system of Adequate Yearly Progress, School Improvement Grants, and other letters that marked the highly punitive, overly-test-reliant era of NCLB. But more important, they recognize a great opportunity ESSA offers to create more holistic accountability systems that include successes a test score simply cannot capture.
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NAESP
Elementary and middle-level principals work tirelessly on behalf of our nation's students. Principals' perspectives on how Pre-K-8 education should function is summarized in the NAESP Platform. NAESP's advocacy staff works to shape Congress's and U.S. Department of Education's policies based on the belief statements included in the platform document. The Platform is reviewed and updated annually and submitted to the Board of Directors to review in March.
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