Monday, November 30, 2020

The Education Exchange: Adding Transparency and Equity with Weighted Trainee Financing

A research professor at Georgetown University and director of the Edunomics Lab, Marguerite Roza, joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss a new Edunomics Lab study on weighted student funding, which investigates the spending patterns and student outcomes in school districts.

The complete study is available here.

The post The Education Exchange: Adding Transparency and Equity with Weighted Student Funding appeared first on Education Next.

Colorado News

Colorado Guv Polis checks favorable for COVID



obtain the whole tale: https://northdenvernews.com/statement-from-colorado-governor-polis-on-testing-positive-for-covid


This night, Governor Polis and First Gentleman Reis discovered that they have actually examined positive for COVID-19. They are both asymptomatic, really feeling well, and also will certainly continue to isolate in their house. The Guv will certainly continue to be carefully monitored. Gov. Polis will certainly continue to accomplish his duties as well as obligations and also remain to work remotely.
Polis:
Previously this evening, Marlon and I learnt that we have actually both examined favorable for COVID-19. We are presently asymptomatic, feeling well, as well as in great spirits.

It doesn't matter who you are or what you do, nobody is immune from this virus. Now is the time to be a lot more cautious than ever before. There is even more of the infection circulating across the nation, consisting of in Colorado, currently than there even remained in the Springtime.

While we separate and comply with the correct methods, I will certainly proceed offering our fantastic state as long as I have the ability to, and doing every little thing I can to help safeguard the health and wellness of Coloradans.

I advise all Coloradans to put on a face mask in public, stay at least six feet away from others, and prevent all social interactions with those outside your home. If you are experiencing any kind of signs and symptoms or believe you might have been exposed, obtain a quick, free and easy examination. Go to covid19.colorado.gov/ examining to discover a screening website near you.

We're done in this together, Colorado. As well as though the light may be at completion of the tunnel, we have to do every little thing we can to protect ourselves and our liked ones.

Numerous governors have checked favorable in recent weeks for the virus, including Wyoming's.

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Friday, November 27, 2020

Let's Get Back to Grace and Gratitude This Thanksgiving

Living through a pandemic is rough. It’s an experience that we are all wanting to come to an end. It has caused businesses to shut their doors due to the lack of customers. Schools have had to close again due to rising COVID-19 cases in the community. Hospital workers are exhausted and strained by the demands of caring for the COVID-19 patients in addition to the normal cases they see. People we loved have died. Not being able to say goodbye in-person or attend a funeral is another toll. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Each person’s situation is different and, when under so much stress, it can be easy to have tunnel vision and lash out at others. But this week is an opportunity to refocus.

Whether a person celebrates Thanksgiving or not, showing gratitude and giving grace is a place we all need to return to during this pandemic. It is hard for all of us. Lashing out at others during this time does not help.

It is time to take a moment and tell anyone who has been helpful or offered support—”Thank you.” Not only should adults do this, but children can participate, too. Giving thanks does not automatically erase the pain and burdens caused by the coronavirus pandemic, but it allows people to step back and take a moment away from those hardships. One aspect of this pandemic has been illuminated: tomorrow is not promised. 

People who were healthy are succumbing to COVID-19. Making it to January 1, 2021 will surely be a blessing. Knowing these facts, it is important to show gratitude and give grace because we truly do not know what is happening in other people’s lives and what impact it has on them and their behavior.

Thank your family, friends, teachers, first responders, community members, and anyone who has made a difference in your life. It might even be helpful to thank at least one person a day moving forward as we all move day by day toward the end of 2020.

It can be easy to fall into a negative mindset, so let’s shift to giving thanks instead.

By: Shawnta S. Barnes
Title: Let’s Get Back to Grace and Gratitude This Thanksgiving
Sourced From: educationpost.org/lets-get-back-to-grace-and-gratitude-this-thanksgiving/
Published Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2020 18:30:34 +0000

Thursday, November 26, 2020

Thankful

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We Need a Cooperative Method to Enhance Education for Students With Disabilities

Ten years ago last month, a team of advocacy organizations filed the New Orleans special education lawsuit (P.B. v. White) in federal court. The class-action suit laid out the harms caused by the Louisiana Department of Education’s failure to deliver special education services to students with disabilities as required by the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Ultimately, the case resulted in a still-active consent judgment that provided federal oversight over special education in New Orleans.

As a member of the team that filed and litigated the lawsuit, and as class counsel until 2018, I’ve spent a decade enmeshed in local issues of special education and have seen firsthand what has worked and what hasn’t. Faced with the court’s public consideration of dissolving the consent judgment and the challenge of delivering special education services during the COVID-19 pandemic, these lessons feel especially relevant.

Lawsuits Are a Last Resort

Lawsuits are not a panacea. Class action challenges against school systems for deficient programs are difficult to mount, let alone sustain, especially when it comes to special education. The IDEA is explicit that it wants to see disputes resolved through teamwork, negotiation, conflict resolution, and communication between parents, teachers and administrators. 

And legal action comes with a steep price. The New Orleans special education lawsuit has led to incredible systemic reforms for children in our city. But the 10 years spent fighting for and implementing the consent judgment represent most of a child’s K-12 education. And for some of the lawsuit’s plaintiffs, the reforms didn’t come in time. 

I wish we could have ensured that each of the thousands of children impacted by the consent judgment saw even some change in their individual education. But that’s not how consent judgments work. You prioritize big picture reforms for the greater good of all. 

Maximizing Outcomes for Students with Disabilities Demands Teamwork 

The entire premise of our federal special education laws is that adults work together to create good programs for students with disabilities and assess and amend these programs at regular intervals. But teamwork can’t be limited to the school building.

Schools must treat families as equal partners—listening to concerns, demystifying complicated pedagogical approaches and hearing their feedback on what works at home. And educators must bring families into the IEP process. Handing them a prefilled form to sign (which is illegal, but happens all the time) doesn’t count.

Policy improvements also require cooperation. As a member of the committee that vetted New Orleans’ Differentiated Funding Formula, which allocates funding based on need, I shifted from being an adversary to partnering with school system stakeholders. It taught me volumes about what we can achieve when we negotiate and listen, even if we need to overcome existing distrust.

A Culture of Transparency and Continuous Improvement Leads to Results

The most important lasting outcome of the consent judgment is the proactive, routine monitoring of New Orleans’ special education programs—and the transparency that has come with it. As comfort with this practice grows, schools are both admitting when their special education programs need work and accepting that they will be monitored and given feedback. Additionally, there is greater public awareness about schools’ special education programs.

This acceptance and transparency are essential. The lawsuit was necessary in part because local stakeholders refused to acknowledge the systemic problems with special education—even while a breakdown in important monitoring systems meant that issues were going unresolved.

Further, all levels of education bureaucracy must engage in the Continuous Improvement & Focused Monitoring Systems that special education law requires. It’s not sexy stuff, but it’s essential. It sets the expectation that everyone’s special education programs are a work in progress, that we will root out weaknesses in our special education programs, develop plans to improve them, and do so in a transparent way that includes compensatory services to students who lost out.

Being placed on a corrective action plan is painful, and it results in a lot of hard work for schools. But moving forward with corrective action is far preferable to hiding poor practices in the shadows.

No matter the future of the consent judgment, New Orleans has come too far to lose momentum now. We must maintain our citywide commitment to continuous improvement and transparency. Only through a cooperative approach can we improve the education of students with disabilities.

By: Jennifer Coco
Title: We Need a Cooperative Approach to Improve Education for Students With Disabilities
Sourced From: educationpost.org/we-need-a-cooperative-approach-to-improve-education-for-students-with-disabilities/
Published Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2020 16:00:00 +0000

President-elect Joe Biden Provides A Thanksgiving Address

Tune in as President-elect Joe Biden delivers a Thanksgiving address on the shared sacrifices Americans are making this holiday season and how we’ll get through this crisis together.



Success Of Queen s Gambit Driving Binge.place



The extraordinary success of the Queen's Gambit, Netflix's latest cult hit is trembling things up in weird locations.

The new web site https://binge.place is experiencing incredible website traffic, as it has ended up being a center for all point's Queen Gambit.

The Queen's Gambit, adapted from the 1983 novel by Walter Trevis, adheres to Elizabeth Harmon throughout her growth as a chess prodigy, says the Atlantic
find out more: https://northdenvernews.com/success-of-queens-gambit-driving-binge-place/

Beth Harmon, a chess prodigy that is the heroine of Netflix's The Queen's Gambit, had the ability to grow her skills just after a very early mentor recognized her talent, opening up possibilities for better training as well as competitors. (theatlantic.com).

Set in the 1960s, "The Queen's Gambit" adheres to the story of fictional talented child Beth Harmon, who climbs to end up being a grandmaster in the male-dominated world of chess Garry Kasparov, a former chess globe champion and also widely considered one of the sporting activity's best gamers, served as a consultant on the program to ensure credibility.

The almost countless facets of the show's intense personality development is sustaining internet traffic as well as marketer demand at the new site, binge.place. Gwen Sherrod, who is dealing with the site's commerical advancement, states "marketer as well as social media sites passion are off the graphes.".

Kasparov claims the success of "The Queen's Gambit" will just better increase the game's international charm. "I assume chess gets on the increase currently in America and all over the world," Kasparov told CNN's Christiane Amanpour. "However I think this collection will certainly do a wonderful task promoting it further and also I expect currently a boom, because it aids to refute the picture of the game of chess as something that could turn you into a geek-- or just to make you insane. "To the contrary, we can see that chess assists Beth Harmon to overcome her weakness and her dependency. (madison.com).



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Denver Accident Lawyer - Estimated 485 Road Fatalities Throughout Thanksgiving Holiday Duration



Check out the terrifying statistics: https://northdenvernews.com/denver-personal-injury-attorney-estimated-485-road-fatalities-during-thanksgiving-holiday-period
https://link.ws/denverpersonalinjury

Maybe most dangerous Thanksgiving because 2008-- but defensive driving can conserve lives
The COVID-19 pandemic has actually brought about troubling traffic safety and security patterns this year, as well as the upcoming Thanksgiving vacation duration might not be an exemption. The National Safety Council approximates that as several as 485 individuals might be eliminated when driving throughout the four-day Thanksgiving Holiday duration and one more 55,300 might be seriously harmed in accidents. The price quote is the highest possible the Council has issued for the Thanksgiving vacation period because 2008. If it holds, it would be the highest number of deaths the UNITED STATE has experienced for a Thanksgiving holiday duration in equally as long.
NSC monthly analysis has actually revealed that the roads have come to be deadlier despite much less traffic. While the variety of deaths went down significantly in the spring, the UNITED STATE experienced a significant increase in the death price-- a fact that demonstrates how risk-free the roadways are at any kind of given time. In the first 6 months of 2020, the death rate was 20% more than during the very same period in 2019, despite a 17% decrease in miles driven in between January and also June. On the whole, motor vehicle fatalities are up an approximated 5% through September, with about 30,390 individuals killed since January.
Denver Injury attorney Brad Freedberg says the vacations can be a headache for families preyed on by drunk and also distracted motorists. "When we see wrongful death instances this time around a year, the emotional injury is extreme. Every Thanksgiving, Chanukah, Christmas season, the memories come swamping back.
This certain year's Thanksgiving holiday duration quote undergoes improved volatility, with a larger analytical confidence period than common, as a result of fads in 2020.
" We have actually kept in mind numerous times this year that open roads must not be an open invitation for reckless driving," said Lorraine M. Martin, president and Chief Executive Officer of the National Safety And Security Council. "We advise vehicle drivers to continue to be alert about their own security if they decide to travel. If every driver would slow down, bend up, drive sober and also listen, we can have a holiday of absolutely no fatalities, which is the only acceptable number.".
Alcohol often is a major consider deadly accidents during holiday weekends, including Thanksgiving. In 2018-- one of the most current year for information-- 31% of fatal accidents during the vacation duration involved an alcohol-impaired vehicle driver.

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Luke Fanders vs Guerin Green - Technical Digital Marketing testbed



Guerin Environment-friendly evaluates his methods.

Luke Fanders is a recognized expert in video clip advertising strategies and strategy.
Guerin Environment-friendly is a specialist, author and also previous pollster.
find out more at: https://socialmediaamplification.com

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Wednesday, November 25, 2020

EdNext Podcast: Spotting and Avoiding Racial Predisposition in Grading

An assistant professor of education at the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education, David Quinn, joins Education Next Editor-in-chief Marty West to discuss Quinn’s new research, which investigates how standardized grading rubrics can help combat racial biases in schools.

Quinn’s article, “How to Reduce Racial Bias in Grading,” is available now.

The EdNext Podcast is available on iTunes, Google Play, Soundcloud, Stitcher and here every Wednesday.

— Education Next

The post EdNext Podcast: Detecting and Preventing Racial Bias in Grading appeared first on Education Next.

By: Education Next
Title: EdNext Podcast: Detecting and Preventing Racial Bias in Grading
Sourced From: www.educationnext.org/ednext-podcast-detecting-and-preventing-racial-bias-in-grading/
Published Date: Wed, 25 Nov 2020 09:00:35 +0000

Civil Liberty Groups Insist on Screening: 'You Can not Enhance What You Do Not Measure.'

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. In this case, the clock is soon-to-be-Ex-Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, who has told states that she won’t issue waivers for standardized tests this Spring. Now that she’s a short-timer, anti-testers are lobbying hard against efforts to measure student proficiency so educators can create interventions for students suffering from COVID learning loss.

In response to the anti-testing crowd, a consortium of civil rights, disability rights, and social justice organizations have written a letter to U.S. Deputy Assistant Education Secretary Ruth E. Ryder explaining that it “is imperative that we have accurate information about how our students are performing so that resources can be directed to schools and students in need.”

Here’s an (unsolicited) suggestion: Administer the tests and make them “no-stakes”( i.e., students, teachers, schools, districts, and states suffer no consequences for poor performance) but we still get data on learning loss. Would that make everyone happy?

Here’s the full letter. Scroll to the bottom for all the signatories.

November 20, 2020
Ruth E. Ryder
Deputy Assistant Secretary
U.S. Department of Education, OESE
400 Maryland Ave. SW
Washington D.C. 20202-6244

Dear Deputy Assistant Secretary Ryder,

The undersigned civil rights, social justice, disability rights and education advocacy organizations across the country appreciate the U.S. Department of Education’s (USED) guidance regarding assessments and accountability, Frequently Asked Questions Impact of COVID-19 on Accountability Systems Required under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA).

The COVID-19 pandemic, and the failure of the federal government to adequately respond to it, is further widening persistent inequities in our education system, which has underserved students of color, Native students, English learners, immigrant students, students with disabilities, and student from low-income families for far too long. Estimates project massive learning loss for students of color and students from low-income families, as well as for students with disabilities, and English learners, resulting from school building closures due to the pandemic. It is imperative that we have accurate information about how our students are performing so that resources can be directed to schools and students in need. USED’s guidance appropriately calls upon states to implement federal equity guardrails established under the ESEA while allowing time-limited flexibility, where necessary, for states to adapt accountability systems due to COVID-19.

For the parents, families, and communities we serve, the data from annual statewide assessments are an important source of information that tell them how well the education system is serving their children. The use of standardized tests has helped reveal longstanding achievement gaps and racial disparities in academic opportunity and provided the evidence used by civil rights groups to advocate for change. Systems of accountability in education serve as a critical tool to ensuring the most vulnerable students and schools receive the support and resources they need to succeed.

This administration gave states the opportunity to opt-out of the requirement to administer summative assessments last spring, and all 50 states did. If USED grants these waivers to states again, we would lose two years of data on our students’ performance at a time when we know barriers to opportunity are growing due to COVID-19, the economic recession, and ongoing systemic racism and discrimination. By law, this data, alongside other measure of opportunity and access, must be used to target resources and interventions to create more equitable learning environments. Our families and communities cannot afford to go two years without knowing how well our students are doing in school, especially when we have every reason to believe that massive interrupted instruction is taking place, and too little is being done to address it.

Particularly now, during this time of national crisis, states and school districts have a duty to serve our most vulnerable children by doing all they can to assess the impact of the pandemic and to provide additional resources and supports to the students that need them the most. We cannot improve what we do not measure, and if we do not measure the opportunity gaps being exacerbated during COVID19, we risk losing a generation of young people.

Similarly, we believe that states and districts should be held accountable for educating their students this year. Unlike in the spring of 2020, districts and state departments of education now have had time to train, forecast, and prepare for the current school year, and it is important to understand how schools are continuing to educate their children, as well as the impact on learning for students across any number of indicators and student categories.

We are particularly concerned about the percentage of students who did not participate in remote learning last spring or summer—and those who continue to, or have become, disengaged from learning this school year. Whether because of a lack of technology, inequitable access to high-speed internet, or some other reason, the nation deserves to know what has happened to these students and what remedies districts and states are bringing to bear in reconnecting these students to educational content, practice, and settings. The school accountability, support, and improvement systems in states’ ESSA plans must be used to capture key metrics designed to hold districts and states to account for addressing the educational needs of these students. USED’s guidance document provides ways for states to maintain these systems with some time-limited flexibility for modest adjustments that may be needed due to the pandemic.

In addition to maintaining assessment and accountability systems, states should also disaggregate a report out data by each major racial, ethnic, and immigrant/newcomer group, including by ethnic subgroups within the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) and Native communities – consistent with the requirements of federal law, or going above them to advance equity. Each community has a right to access vital information on: how student attendance is being tracked and measured; whether students are reading and doing math on grade-level; social, emotional, and whole child measures and indicators; student course-completion and high school graduation rates; changes in school climate indicators (including use of exclusionary discipline practices, the use of police in schools, and student referrals to law enforcement); opportunity measures (including access to pre-K and technology); and per-pupil expenditures and other investments to improve resource equity.

Assessments alone will not address discriminatory systems and must be paired with leadership and real action to address the systemic inequities they bring to light. We call upon states, districts, and schools to use USED’s guidance as they implement their assessment and accountability systems during this unprecedented time, provide our communities with information on how the nation’s children are performing in the midst of the pandemic, and use this data to direct additional resources to students and schools in need of support.

Sincerely,
National Urban League
League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)
National Action Network (NAN)
National Indian Education Association (NIEA)
Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC)
UnidosUS
Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates (COPAA)
National Center for Learning Disabilities
National Center for Special Education in Charter Schools
The Education Trust
Education Reform Now
Alliance for Excellent Education

This post originally appeared on NJ Left Behind.

Colorado News

Tuesday, November 24, 2020

In Catholic Schools, a Try Out Blended Learning

Students leave their classroom at Dayton’s Immaculate Conception School in Dayton, Ohio. Immaculate Conception was able to increase its enrollment by 90 students in its first year of partnership with Seton Education.

Catholic schools have dealt with declining enrollment and rising costs since the 1960s, leading to widespread closures that were accelerated by the pandemic (See “In Pandemic, Private Schools Face Peril,” Features, Fall 2020). To help Catholic schools regain their financial footing, Seton Blended Learning Network, a program within the nonprofit organization Seton Education Partners, has teamed up with schools to promote blended learning and increase enrollment at a faster pace.

The main driver of Catholic schools’ present plight has been their human capital model. Historically, Catholic schools relied upon members of religious vocations, like priests and sisters, to teach students. They had the gravitas, the support of parents to teach large classes, and the religious commitment to take very low salaries. As religious vocations declined, Catholic schools had to turn to lay teachers and administrators, increasing costs and decreasing class sizes.

Small class sizes are now a feature of many Catholic schools across the country and a selling point for parents. The problem is that the smaller the class size, the higher the per-pupil expense, even when the salaries of the staff are well below those of the employees in most public schools. Particularly for schools that want to serve low-income populations, and even for schools that want to serve middle-class families, this makes the financial model problematic.

The Seton Network

Seton Education Partners is working with 14 Catholic schools around the country to change that equation. As Emily Gilbride, director of the network, said: “We will reduce their per-pupil operating costs.” In the schools where Seton works, it encourages classrooms to grow, often to an average of 30 students per class, up from 15. To cope with these additional students, classes are divided into two or three smaller instructional units that progress through the day in what Gilbride calls a “rotational small-group model.” While one group is working with the teacher, the others are on Chromebooks, working with computer-adaptive software like i-Read, Imagine Math, and Lexia Learning. Seton uses 14 different software platforms in all, depending on the school, grade, and student need.

A maximum of half the class is on computers at a time, so Seton partner schools need only a two-to-one ratio of children to Chromebooks, instead of the more costly and intensive one-to-one programs that many schools use. This model also requires little change to the physical structures of schools and classrooms. Usually, Seton just adds some tables along one classroom wall to serve as computer stations, plus some kidney-shaped tables for small-group work with teachers.

St. Joseph Catholic School in Cincinnati, Ohio, was able to grow to 282 students from 202 in its initial year of partnership. As most of those children participate in Ohio’s EdChoice school voucher program, each additional pupil represented $4,650 in new revenue for the school. All told, that meant almost $400,000 more coming into the school on an annual basis.

The most recent addition to the Seton portfolio, the Immaculate Conception School in Dayton, Ohio, was able to increase its enrollment by 90 students in its first year of partnership. Again, this means hundreds of thousands more dollars in revenue every year. For small Catholic schools, this is a massive swing in enrollment and revenue, and a massive opportunity to serve more students.

Moving to larger classes and blended learning hasn’t been easy, however. Both parents and teachers need convincing, and teachers need training and technical help. With respect to parents, Gilbride argues that focusing on personalization through computer-adaptive software is a big selling point. Also, schools don’t double their class sizes overnight. Usually, they add a few children per year, which cushions the shock, allowing parents to ease into the new model. The story for teachers is similar. By easing into the model, providing instructional coaches for the first two years of partnership, and focusing on the upside, Seton can win teachers over. If the partnership helps prevent a school from closing, it means that teachers keep their jobs.

“We want to place each child’s God-given potential at the forefront of what we’re doing,” Gilbride says, which helps focus both families and teachers on what is important.

Seton’s partnership is a multiyear agreement with schools to help get blended-learning programs up and running and to support schools as they transition to operating the programs independently. Seton fundraises for the startup costs of the transition, which can range from $600,000 for a small school to $850,000 for a larger one. This money goes toward purchasing hardware and software, upgrading servers and wiring, and hiring an instructional coach for teachers. After that, schools pay a fee to the network to continue to participate. Seton says its bulk purchasing of software licenses, which are then made available to network schools, saves participating schools more than they pay in network fees. Software licenses are expensive.

For the Seton model to work, however, several stars need to align. There must be leadership in the school willing to do something different. There must be someone who understands the need to increase revenue at a faster rate than expenses. There must be teachers and parents willing to buy in. The model requires not only a shift to blended learning, but a school culture centered on doing something different to balance the budget and educate children. Not every school has this kind of leadership or community.

What Can We Learn from Seton Network Schools?

Blended learning is not for everyone, but Gilbride offers two lessons that apply to private and public schools alike.

First, schools looking to try blended learning need not plan for one-to-one student-to-device ratios. The one-to-one phenomenon has swept the nation, and schools have been purchasing huge numbers of tablets and Chromebooks to meet demand. These devices require updates to servers and routers and sometimes even electrical wiring in schools. Tablets must be maintained, and they require tech support, and the higher the number of these devices is, the higher those associated costs are. Yes, if class sizes are increasing or other changes are being made, then the fact that children are getting their very own computers or tablets can help blunt criticism. But blunting criticism in the short term is not worth the trade-off in the long term.

Gilbride argues that a two-to-one ratio is better. Her primary argument is that it “allows teachers to teach.” Rather than having students constantly glued to devices, students use devices at some times and don’t use them at others. There’s time for traditional instruction or small-group work and time to work with adaptive software. This structure allows teachers and software to do what they each do best.

Two-to-one is also undeniably cheaper. Buying, supporting, and maintaining half the number of devices of a one-to-one program can represent serious cost savings. For schools with very narrow margins in their budgets, this can be a gamechanger. There are still substantial startup costs, though, and Seton needs to do fundraising on the front end to make the transition.

Second, Gilbride encourages schools to start small. The software itself need not cost much. Numerous free, high-quality software programs have many of the features of the software that Seton and other blended-learning providers use. They are not as fully articulated as the paid programs, but they can give schools a rough idea of what teachers and students will be able to do if they switch to a blended model. Examples include ISL, No Red Ink, and, perhaps most famously, Khan Academy.

Transitioning to a blended model is a huge shift for students, teachers, leaders, and parents. It is not something that should be done lightly or quickly. It can go wrong, as some schools learned with attempts to shift instruction rapidly online amid the pandemic. Schools curious about the approach can try blended learning with these free tools in a single classroom or grade to see how the model works, rather than scale up to the entire school immediately. Teachers and principals can dip their toes in the water and see what the temperature is. Do teachers like the model? Are children responding to it? What are the practical concerns, such as infrastructure upgrades, schedule changes, and so on? In short, is this something worth trying on a larger scale? Only after a successful pilot program will schools need to make the large investments in equipment and training to move entirely to a blended model.

These lessons apply beyond blended learning. Any decision to use technology should focus on the problem that technology is trying to solve. No matter what the technology of tomorrow will be, starting with small pilot programs is a wise first step for schools. Also, thinking about how students can share resources, instead of requiring one device for every child, can be a way to save costs.

Blended learning is not just for schools facing fiscal difficulty or on the verge of closure. It can also be of use to rural schools that have difficulty recruiting teachers for higher level math and science courses and that wish to provide challenging coursework for more advanced students. Blended learning can change more than just the economics of a school; it can also change the quality of the education a school provides.

Reprinted and adapted by permission of the Publisher. From Frederick M. Hess and Brandon L. Wright, eds., Getting the Most Bang for the Education Buck, New York: Teachers College Press. Copyright © 2020 by Teachers College, Columbia University. All rights reserved.

Michael Q. McShane is the director of national research at EdChoice.

The post In Catholic Schools, an Experiment with Blended Learning appeared first on Education Next.

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Who's Asking the Questions in Your Classroom? If It's Not Your Students, Think Again

Teachers often tell their students that there is no such thing as a bad question. It’s true of course—students should never be embarrassed to ask a question. At the same time, however, it is possible to learn to ask better questions.

Unfortunately, questioning is a skill that is not emphasized enough in classrooms. Indeed, one of the pillars of critical thinking—a set of skills that is more valuable now than ever—is the capacity to formulate and ask questions. 

Formulating Good Questions

Formulating good questions requires that we hone in on an issue effectively, proactively and with confidence. Good questioning skills are among the most important strategies we can help our students cultivate, and they are closely aligned with the ideals typically expressed in schools’ mission statements. Moreover, the ability to generate and ask robust questions empowers us all as citizens in a democratic society. Our form of government, quite literally, depends on it.

Regrettably, the current emphasis on extrinsic motivators such as testing and ranking devalues questioning. The drive for better scores overwhelms intrinsic motivators—like creativity, autonomy and love of learning—that grow when kids are given the tools and opportunities to ask good questions. Learning should be enjoyable and fulfilling. It should be characterized by curiosity and awe.

Teaching Critical Thinking

A new teachers’ guide to critical thinking (which I advised on with a group of exceptional fellow educators) released by the Reboot Foundation provides insights into teaching critical thinking, lesson plan outlines on skills like critical reading, and other suggestions for teachers to foster curiosity and critical thinking.

One related and compelling strategy for teaching questioning and critical thinking comes from the Question Formulation Technique (QFT), devised by the Right Question Institute. It’s a powerful way to foster a critical thinking ethos among not only our students, but anyone seeking to evolve and thrive as a learner and as a citizen.

QFT begins with a prompt, which the Right Question Institute refers to as the Q-Focus. The Q-Focus can be an image, a quote, a controversial statement, a political cartoon, an artifact, or any number of ways to provoke interest, stimulate questioning, deepen thinking, and engage students from the initiation of the learning task. 

For example, to begin a lesson about women’s rights, a teacher might show the famous 1967 image of Katherine Switzer being attacked by a male race official while becoming the first female to run the Boston Marathon. It is important that this prompt is grounded in the curriculum and serves as a springboard for student examination of a larger issue, dilemma, event, concept or another phenomenon. 

Students might ask questions about:

  • Where and when the event took place.
  • The assailant and the expression on his face.
  • The role of the other male runner.
  • Her reaction and the reaction of others.
  • Changing attitudes and cultural norms.
  • Concepts such as fairness, competition and equity. 

When presented with a Q-Focus, especially in a group setting, students are encouraged to ask as many questions as possible; to refrain from answering, judging, or discussing any of the questions; to write down every question exactly as stated, and to change any statements about the Q-Focus into questions.  

During this initial brainstorming session, it’s valuable to discuss with students the advantages and disadvantages of different kinds of questions: for example, “open” questions, which tend to have no definitive answers, versus “closed” ones that do, for example. 

Students will typically focus on things like the availability of facts, the enduring nature of the question or the speed with which an answer can be found. They may also find that, by and large, questions that begin with who, what, where, and when tend to be “closed” questions, whereas why and how lend themselves to more “open” questions. 

The next steps in the process involve students sharing their questions with each other (being reminded not to judge, answer, nor discuss). Students should identify each question as an “open” or “closed” question, and importantly, changing closed questions to more open-ended ones and vice versa. 

Using the previous example, if students ask more closed questions focused on the era in which the event took place, such as “Why is the photograph black and white?” or “Why are the people dressed like that?”, the teacher should take advantage of the opportunity to model ways to strengthen the question: “What can images tell us about the attitudes, values, and behaviors of previous generations or time periods?” 

Initially, learners of all abilities and ages may struggle with modifying questions so that they become more open-ended. It is also advantageous to point out that often, the questions are not so much about the Q-Focus, but the larger ideals, concepts, or more enduring issues that the Q-Focus represents. 

To these ends, a worthwhile strategy is to provide question stems for students to work with, such as “In what ways…” and “To what extent…” A more open question about the Switzer incident might be “In what ways do incidents like this one reveal deeper cultural attitudes toward women and equal rights” or “To what extent did Katherine Switzer’s actions change things for the better?”

Open-ended questions are essential, enduring, and overarching—they can be used time and again and are applicable across a curriculum and even across disciplines. Learning how to ask these types of questions enhances students’ critical thinking capabilities, builds confidence, and increases interest and engagement.

Teachers may be understandably hesitant to make the shift from a classroom dynamic where they ask questions for students to answer to one in which students are asking the questions. But isn’t this more aligned with what we as teachers want our students to ultimately become: the primary producer, owner, and consumer throughout the learning process?

The teacher, meanwhile, serves here as a model, a guide and a facilitator. The QFT encourages teachers to refrain from attempting to answer and improve students’ questions and allows students to improve their own questions. It transforms a teacher-dominated setting into a student-driven and more collaborative classroom environment. The superiority of active student engagement to passive learning will become increasingly evident as student competence with question generation flourishes. 

The Question Formulation Technique is a valuable instructional strategy for teachers to have in their critical thinking toolbox. As students learn how to develop questions, they will be well on their way toward active, knowledgeable citizenship and lifelong learning.

Colorado News

What Produces an Effective Secretary of Education?

In D.C. education circles, President-elect Biden’s electoral victory has spawned a hot new guessing game: Who will be the next secretary of education? I’ll tell you upfront, I have no idea. And, this year in particular, I can assure you that the Biden transition team doesn’t much care what I think.

I will offer one insight, for what it’s worth. It’s pretty clear that any Biden nominee is going to require the backing of the NEA and AFT. Meanwhile, assuming Republicans claim at least one of the two Georgia Senate seats (and that’s the way to bet), any nominee is also going to require some GOP support. Although bipartisan support for a secretary of education-designee was once a norm, Democrats voted unanimously against Betsy DeVos in 2017—setting a new precedent. The upshot is that the eventual nominee will have to fit a relatively narrow political window (which could yield some surprising developments).

But, rather than talk politics or prognostication, I want to focus on something else here. As I notedover at Forbes the other day, I’ve enjoyed a front-row seat for the tenures of the past five secretaries of education—from Rod Paige to DeVos. I’ve had the opportunity to observe their strengths, limitations, and experiences, and I’ve concluded there are a half-dozen traits that President-elect Biden should seek in his choice:

A willingness to put students first. Of course, everybody says they’ll put students first (talk about a layup). But the reality is that Washington is swarming with organizations that represent influential institutions, systems, and employees. There can be great pressure to focus on the care and feeding of these groups. For better or worse, and even when it annoys allies or powerful interests, the secretary needs to be the one steadfastly bringing the focus back to the students in our nation’s schools and colleges. This is essential, particularly at a time when Covid has left so many students and families feeling like their needs are being treated as an afterthought.

A broad knowledge of education. The Department of Education’s brief covers pretty much the whole of American education, ranging from special education to college affordability to monitoring educational performance. While Washington plays a much larger financial role in higher education than in K-12 schooling, the secretary’s public role has more often emphasized K-12. A secretary with a broader familiarity with the broad expanse of education has a leg up in setting priorities, asking the right questions, and anticipating challenges.

An understanding of the federal role. Some awareness of the breadth of education can be invaluable. But it’s also vital to appreciate that Washington doesn’t run America’s schools or colleges. In our federal system, short of the occasional major legislation, Washington’s role is frequently a matter of modest executive actions, high-profile commissions, and the bully pulpit. By themselves, these things rarely yield dramatic change—such movement requires broad coalitions and state-level leadership. A secretary benefits immensely from understanding this dynamic and knowing how to navigate it.

A respect for data. The Department of Education houses the Institute of Education Sciences and is charged with supporting research and reporting on the nation’s schools and colleges. That means, especially in the time of Covid, that the secretary should be a champion of transparency and rigorous evidence. This can be tougher than it sounds since what some regard as “following the evidence” can strike others as thinly-disguised partisanship. Concerning Covid, for instance, while teachers’ unions have argued that a respect for science requires emphasizing public-health challenges, Republicans have tended to focus on the evidence suggesting that reopening has generally proven safe.

An ability to transcend divides. President-elect Biden has spoken powerfully and laudably in recent days of his desire to be a unifying leader, promising to work “as hard for those who didn’t vote for me as those who did” and calling for “this grim era of demonization . . . to end here and now.” And, generally speaking, a secretary of education also benefits from a willingness to speak inclusively and work across the aisle. This is particularly true given that the disagreements on many educational questions—charter schooling, accountability, or college affordability, for instance—don’t always map neatly onto familiar political divides.

A thick skin. It’s safe to predict that the next secretary of education won’t face the same unrelenting hostility that greeted Betsy DeVos in 2016. (Recall that DeVos was harshly criticized for all manner of offenses, real and imagined, from the day her nomination was announced.) But it’s also a surety that the next secretary will encounter tough-minded criticism. The ability to shake it off, resist the temptation to lash out at critics, and keep moving forward is part of the job.

I can’t claim much insight into who will fill the secretary of education’s office come early 2021, but I am confident that a nominee who embodies these traits will be best equipped for the demands of the role.

Frederick Hess is director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and an executive editor of Education Next.

This post originally appeared on Rick Hess Straight Up.

The post What Makes for an Effective Secretary of Education? appeared first on Education Next.

By: Frederick Hess
Title: What Makes for an Effective Secretary of Education?
Sourced From: www.educationnext.org/what-makes-for-an-effective-secretary-of-education/
Published Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2020 09:01:50 +0000

Monday, November 23, 2020

The Education Exchange: Space in Financing Grows In Between Charters, Conventional Public Schools

A professor of Education Policy at the University of Arkansas, Patrick J. Wolf, joins Paul E. Peterson to discuss Wolf’s new research, which explores the funding inequities between charter and traditional schools in 18 cities across the country.

The report, “Charter School Funding: Inequity Surges in the Cities,” by Wolf, Corey A. DeAngelis, Larry D. Maloney and Jay F. May, is available now.

The post The Education Exchange: Gap in Funding Grows Between Charters, Traditional Public Schools appeared first on Education Next.

By: Education Next
Title: The Education Exchange: Gap in Funding Grows Between Charters, Traditional Public Schools
Sourced From: www.educationnext.org/the-education-exchange-gap-in-funding-grows-between-charters-traditional-public-schools/
Published Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2020 08:59:11 +0000

5 Resources to Assist Students Feel Seen This Transgender Awareness Week

No group of human beings is a monolith. Transgender students are no exception to that. This Transgender Awareness Week (and all weeks) it’s on us as cisgender adults to do the work to learn how cool these kids are. We need to show them a variety of options to follow their dreams, to be adults, to live meaningful lives. 

I’m just a dopey, cis, hetero, white guy. But I have known a number of transgender people in my time, ranging from acquaintances I give high fives to at punk rock shows to former classmates to friends I cherish more than family members. I’ve asked them for recommendations. I’m no expert by any means, but over the years I’ve put in some of the work necessary to discuss these topics intelligently and with kindness. 

These are resources and educational pop culture my colleagues and I have found helpful to better get to know the transgender people in our lives. Whether they lead to educational breakthroughs or not, the following things are a good way to tell students you see them and are thinking about all the ways to help them succeed on their terms. 

“Pet” by Akwaeke Emezi
In this 2019 novel for young adult readers, Akwaeke Emezi tells the story of Jam, a teenage transgender girl, going on a supernatural adventure. Angels and demons and monsters, oh my. But more than those fun genre elements, there’s a deeper idea of acceptance running beneath the surface. “Hormone blockers and treatments ensue, followed by surgery when she turns 15, all with the support of her loving parents and the acceptance of her community,” wrote Ibi Zoboi about the novel in the New York Times

“Nevada” by Imogen Binnie
Imogen Binnie’s 2013 novel, “Nevada,” is about a young transgender woman leaving her city slicker problems behind her in New York City to hit the open road. The book asks questions like, as The Michigan Daily’s Emily Yang described, “How do you become a person when you’ve been avoiding yourself for so long before transitioning?” For the trans, or gender non-conforming, or questioning students in your classrooms, these are the questions that can help them understand themselves. Having students who are confident in their identities means you have students who are ready to learn.

  • Laverne Cox’s Speech at Variety’s Power of Women.
    Award-winning “Orange Is the New Black” actress Laverne Cox didn’t waste time when delivering a speech at Variety’s 2016 Power of Women event. “It’s a big deal that I’m here,” she said. “It’s a big deal when a transgender woman is included in women’s spaces and is honored alongside other women.” That part of her speech may resonate with any students who have felt marginalized, whether they identify with Cox’s life as a trans woman or not. The whole speech is worth a watch to prime all students, the vast majority of whom will not be transgender, for why it’s important to highlight—and celebrate—those who are different. 
  • Adira on “Star Trek: Discovery”
    The current season of “Star Trek: Discovery” has added the character of Adira, a wide-eyed young prodigy who just so happens to remember multiple past lives. Using “Star Trek” alien tropes as a storytelling vehicle, the writers have crafted an arc for Adira—and the non-binary actor who plays Adira, Blu del Barrio—to explore life through the eyes of gender non-conforming young people you may know in your classrooms. The recent Adira-heavy episode “Forget Me Not” may help your students who are dealing with identity questions—plus, bonus representation points for a science fiction adventure franchise building a big-budget CGI sequence around a non-binary cast member coming to terms with their identity. 
  • Gender Spectrum’s Educator Resources Page
    If you’re here, you likely want to create gender-inclusive environments in your school communities. Gender Spectrum has been helping educators build those for years. Their findings, which they call the “Principles of Gender Inclusive Health Education,” can be found here

These are just a few options. What are your ideas? 

This post originally appeared on Citizen Education.

By: Rob Samuelson
Title: 5 Resources to Help Students Feel Seen This Transgender Awareness Week
Sourced From: educationpost.org/5-resources-to-help-students-feel-seen-this-transgender-awareness-week/
Published Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2020 19:21:09 +0000

Sunday, November 22, 2020

Here's Why Independent Reading Matters in a Pandemic

We’re in the midst of a back-to-school season like no other. The COVID-19 pandemic has raised lots of questions about how to safely and effectively keep kids learning when traditional classroom teaching isn’t an option. Many schools across the U.S. are focusing on virtual learning for the time being, with classes being held primarily or exclusively online.

Meanwhile, parents from all walks of life are worried about how to make sure their kids are keeping up. Affluent parents have hired tutors or forming learning “pods” with their friends and neighbors. Other families are struggling just to access a stable internet connection or the basic technology their kids need for class, like a laptop with a webcam. These inequities aren’t unique to virtual learning; they are reflections of the opportunity gaps that existed in American education long before the pandemic and are only widening now.

I know that these issues of systemic inequity will not be resolved overnight, or even by the end of this school year. But there’s one crucial learning activity that every child—no matter their circumstances—can do right now, at home: reading.

There’s a reason that Harriett Ball—the master teacher who inspired the creation of KIPP—urged her students, “You gotta read, baby, read!” Independent reading, where students choose the books they read and are given dedicated time to read on their own, has benefits that go way beyond the written page.

Research shows students who read independently not only become better readers, but have greater knowledge in all subject areas and score higher on achievement tests, compared to those who do not. The amount of reading done outside of school hours can improve a child’s vocabulary, reading comprehension and verbal fluency. And the greater their reading skills, the more prepared students are to understand and dive into other subjects at school.

Independent reading is also fun! It’s a way for students to explore new subjects at their own pace, to exercise their imaginations and connect with their creativity. Even though there’s a lot that’s stressful about our virtual learning environment right now, students can still enjoy the familiar pleasure of diving into a good book.

So how can we encourage students to keep reading all school year long?

Three Tips for Teachers

  • Create a space for students to recommend great books to each other, even in a virtual setting. One way to do this is by setting up a “virtual bookshelf” where your students share books that they’ve enjoyed reading, so that their classmates can find books they’re interested in. Once a student finds a book that they love, you can search for similar titles online and create a ladder of book recommendations for students to try next.
  • Connect students to their local library. Some school and public libraries are offering safe book pick-ups and drop-offs so that students have more variety available to them. Most public libraries today also have e-books available for loan, which work on many devices that are accessible to students. This is a great way to get more books in the hands of students, particularly our young adult readers.
  • Share “book trailers” with your students. These are short videos in the style of movie trailers, which many publishers create for the release of new books. Book trailers are a great way to introduce students to new books that can be found in your school library or local public library. Students can also create their own book trailers to share with their classmates for books they’ve read.

Of course, no matter what strategies you use, make sure to keep track of all the books your students are reading and set individualized goals for how many books each student hopes to read.

Three Tips for Families

  • Make independent reading a part your child’s daily routine. Make reading time sacred for both you and your child. Balance this with an abundance of choice, utilizing your local library to help make this possible. Let kids pick the books and topics that they want to read about. Research tells us that building knowledge about the world through texts and topics supports overall reading achievement.
  • When you can, read aloud with your kids. Children love independent reading more as they develop a love of books overall and reading aloud can be very motivating for children of all ages. Read a variety of picture books and chapter books aloud with your kid or have them read aloud to you. You could also consider listening to audio books together as a family.  
  • When possible, let your kids see you reading. Share the books or the articles you are reading. Talk about the interesting things that you read about or learned while reading. Talk about what you are reading often, so that it becomes part of the fabric of your kids’ experience at home.

There’s a lot we still don’t know about teaching and learning in a pandemic. But one thing we do know is that when kids read, they learn.

Photo courtesy of KIPP.

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Friday, November 20, 2020

President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris Provide Remarks

Throughout this pandemic, our nation’s governors have stepped up to meet the moment. President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala just met with the National Governors Association Executive Committee to discuss how they’ll work together to combat COVID-19.



What Is Technical Digital Marketing

This past November, a report launched by the Internet marketing Institute, ClickZ as well as Kelly Staffing exposed some worrying stats concerning the present state of skill within the area of electronic marketing. To get a feel for digital advertising skills as well as training currently experienced by a variety of businesses, greater than 700 execs from the Fortune 500 along with worldwide firms were surveyed. The research exposed extensive discontentment magnate have with the abilities (or lack therof) of their digital/social media groups. It additionally found a considerable talent space in the industry that is adversely impacting ROI, sales as well as worker retension.
Among other points, here are a few of the more fascinating findings from the report:
71% of huge business think their electronic team is solid in some specialities, however weak in others, with substantial gaps in every location studied.
Just 8% of those evaluated believe their workers are solid in all locations of digital advertising.
Big companies are in certain demand of entry-level social media sites marketing experts, as well as mid-tier supervisors in material marketing and also internet analytics.
Agencies perceive especially strong spaces in mobile, analytics, as well as marketing automation.
30% of huge business and also 24% of firms are not able to properly distinguish between individuals with the best abilities, as well as those without.
There is a wide feeling of privilege amongst young staff members.
The record is undoubtedly disconcerting and need to be a root cause of concern for present university student that intend on seeking a profession in electronic marketing. While few details are supplied about the precise reason for this electronic ability space, it’s risk-free to presume that it’s an outcome of a couple of unfortunate truths:
A) Universities do not currently use enough cerriculum that would properly prepare graduates for the needs awaiting them in digital advertising jobs, B) Services as well as companies do not have ample staff member training sources that might efficiently reduce the skill voids in their workforce (This idea was quickly highlighted in the record), C) Both current college students in addition to recent grads are not applying themselves sufficient outside of class/work to keep up in an affordable field that is constantly developing as well as requires more and more technical skills annually.
Factors An and B are worth exploring, yet while university and also business leaders clamber to close the ability gaps at their ends, young potential online marketers ought to commit to teaching themselves the necessary abilities to ensure they have the ability to fulfill the demands of their future employers. Those that place in the moment as well as effort between the hours invested examining as well as interning will find themselves at an advantage when they ultimately get in the full-time workforce.
Those skills that upcoming digital online marketers would certainly be wise to discover in 2014 as well as past are coming to be increasingly technological. Strong interaction skills such as sales, Public Relations, public speaking and also creating are and also will certainly remain useful to firms of all dimensions, yet the technological tools and systems made use of to connect in these ways are starting to pass through every aspect of our lives. While today’s electronic online marketer may prosper sufficient in concentrating on general branding execution, it’s a safe bet that those that disregard the skills required in the technical/creative process will find themselves at the incorrect end of the digital talent gap the one displayed below.
As you can see above, several of the technical skills that employees are evidently weak in are detailed at the top. Most are pretty general though as well as there suffices up there to stress any kind of recent college graduate trying to determine where they need to establish an their greatest know-how. When considering where to focus your time spent discovering certain abilities, it’s worth taking a go back and identifying what the present patterns remain in the field of electronic advertising. This indicates advising yourself that social networks is still white warm, but crowded social streams require even more from brand names who are made use of to automatic uploading as well as continuous self promo. It implies realizing that every business is currently a media company, or at the very least they ought to be. This has led to a considerable emphasis currently placed on photos and video clips of the best. It likewise suggests that customers prefer large, bold and ultra-simple layout that improves the user experience. It implies admitting that desktops and also laptops get on their way out as well as most of time that consumers spend online is by means of their cellphones as well as tablets. It means 2014 is THE year for material marketing, and also consistently creating innovative, original, high quality material undoubtedly needs technical skills.
To make sure that’s the existing electronic media landscape. Currently here are the technical abilities that come to my mind … Coding at the very least a basic understanding of the differences in between numerous coding languages and also the ability to build a basic internet site and/or mobile application from square one Web Design a sharp developer’s eye for the top trends and designs in internet and also mobile layout as well as the capacity to develop a modern looking website compatibale to both desktop as well as mobile styles Analytics familiarity with prominent tools as well as software application used to assess information callected from electronic media task and the ability to place such tools in position to track interactions, analyze the outcomes and afterwards properly react by adjusting digital advertising and marketing techniques as needed Video clip Manufacturing expertise of proper devices, tools and software program required to shoot a top quality video clip as well as the ability to record, modify and also share that video through any type of digital advertising channel Photoshop strong proficiency with all Adobe as well as various other picture editing software application plus the capacity to craft premium quality images deserving of the most followed Pinterest board Photography know exactly how to deal with large, high def cams to adeptly catpure, modify as well as upload HD photos Claiming “I wish to discover exactly how to code” or “I’m going to study digital photography” isn’t fairly adequate, nonetheless. Future digital marketing professionals should understand specifically how these disciplines put on branding, posting, social media, and so on. I intend on delving into higher information concerning these skills and also particularly exactly how they apply to the occupation in a different post.
For now though, let me repeat: There is a major gap in ability in the field of digital advertising and marketing and it is causing a number of issues for companies, customers, execs as well as the employees themselves. Those currently going to college and intend on going into the field upon graduation need to carefully assess where they would likely fall on the skill void graph. More than likely, there are numerous technical abilities that will certainly require considerable renovation if they wish to succeed at the beginning of their career as well as perform to demanding companies. These students should not depend exclusively on their teachers or employers to fix this space for them. They ought to proactively lay out to obtain the needed technology abilities themselves.

Colorado News

Thursday, November 19, 2020

Treat NAEP as a Truth Inspect, Not an Advocacy Exercise

Haley Barbour

If you’re like me, the election, Covid spikes, and the rest mean that October’s NAEP scores haven’t exactly been top of mind. But, with the election behind us, I’m inclined to say a few words about the weak 2019 12th grade numbers, which showed math performance flat and reading declining noticeably since 2015.

Overall, just 37 percent of 12th graders were “proficient” in reading and 24 percent in math. And keep in mind that these aren’t Covid-impacted scores. The tests were administered in fall 2019, six months before Covid reared its ugly head. As Haley Barbour, chair of the National Assessment Governing Board, put it, “These results demonstrate that far too many of our nation’s high school seniors do not have sufficient math and reading skills for postsecondary endeavors.”

So, not great. At the same time, let’s keep in mind that NAEP results are a snapshot. They’re useful for tracking big-picture student achievement but need to be handled with care. Unfortunately, too many appear disposed to disregard such cautions, treating NAEP less as an essential reality check than as a festival of agendas and dubious narratives. That’s been especially true during this election season.

As is true with each new NAEP release, the teachers’ unions and self-described “public school advocates” have a universal excuse for any crummy results—the “disinvestment” in public education. Never mind what the actual spending figures show, or that after-inflation per-pupil spending has increased steadily over the past two decades. In their eyes, the lesson of NAEP is always more spending.

Meanwhile, there’s a segment of school choice advocates who eagerly greet any lousy new NAEP numbers by shouting, “Ah-ha, schools are failing!” For them, the lesson of NAEP is simple: more school choice. Of course, given that NAEP proficiency was purposefully set at an aspirational level from inception, aggregate proficiency results should be taken with more than a few grains of salt.

And then there are efforts to weave complex narratives to explain the results. For instance, some holdout Common Core enthusiasts have gone to great lengths to insist that we not blame the long-standing stagnation in NAEP on Common Core. Of course, this involves devising convoluted alternative explanations—such as attributing them to the aftermath of the 2008 recession. This argument was dusted off, once again this year, with adherents implying that we should trace changes in reading and math scores to decade-old economic circumstances rather than a massive push to change reading and math instruction.

The truth is that there’s no clear or defensible way to determine what’s responsible for NAEP results, and all of the predictable spinning should be treated accordingly. It may be wishful thinking, but we’d all be better off if analysts restrained themselves from offering convenient, one-shot explanations for NAEP changes.

It’s equally important that we safeguard NAEP from its purported friends. NAEP is our one reliable tool to measure academic progress over time. On that score, recent efforts to overhaul NAEP’s reading framework are deeply troubling. In a major push to “update” NAEP’s reading framework, the National Assessment Governing Board has now developed a massive draft framework that aims, at enormous cost, to turn NAEP’s reading assessment from a straightforward snapshot of reading performance into a complicated, amorphous gauge of 21st-century “literacy” as understood by the education school set.  Specially, the framework calls for the inclusion of multimedia texts, such as video clips, alongside (or instead of) textual passages. The result would compromise our ability to know how well students can actually read, introduce an array of potential distortions, and sorely reduce our ability to compare future results with past performance. As Checker Finn, the National Assessment Governing Board’s very first chair, has observed, “One of the framework developers’ key impulses is a truly worrying overreach for NAEP.”

NAEP can play a useful role in providing a respected baseline for assessing whether states or the nation are making academic progress, grounding our sense of where we are and what we’ve done. But NAEP plays that role best when we recognize its limitations.

Frederick Hess is director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and an executive editor of Education Next.

This post originally appeared on Rick Hess Straight Up.

The post Treat NAEP as a Reality Check, Not an Advocacy Exercise appeared first on Education Next.

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