Friday News Roundup

Here’s your Friday News Roundup.

How Would Teachers Spend the Gates Foundation $1.1 Billion Investment in Math? (EducationWeek)

Alyson Klein, a reporter for EducationWeek, wrote an article recently focused on how teachers would spend the $1.1 billion the Gates Foundation recently approved to improve our country’s math performance. Klein writes,

“The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced this month that it will be pouring $1.1 billion over the next four years into improving math teaching and learning, the start of what could be a decade-long investment in math education.”

“The timing is resonant: Results from the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that student performance in math cratered, erasing two decades of progress.”

“The foundation has been conducting a yearlong listening tour, reaching out to educators, researchers, and communities, and has pledged to continue doing so.”

Teachers interviewed had these suggestions regarding how to spend the math billion:

Materials for inquiry-based math instruction

Math intervention specialists and professional development

Ongoing support for teachers

Instructional materials, curriculum, professional development, all vetted by educators

Smaller classes and resources for teachers to do the administrative parts of their job so they can focus on instruction

There are around 99,000 public schools in the country. If every school gets part of the Gates grant, that gives each school $11,000 to improve math.

I’m not hopeful this grant is going to make any difference to our math problem.

Does anyone remember Gates’s love for small schools back in the day?

Study: Damage From NAEP Math Losses Could Total Nearly $1 Trillion (The 74)

The 74 reported earlier this week that,

“Federal test scores released last week illustrated the extent of COVID’s impact on K-12 learning, revealing the largest-ever math declines in the history of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. In virtually every state and major school district, fourth and eighth graders demonstrated far less mastery over the subject than students who took the test before the pandemic.”

“But that academic slippage isn’t measured only in scale points and proficiency standards. In a new study timed to coincide with the NAEP release, researchers found that the erosion of math skills experienced by America’s eighth graders may lead to hundreds of billions of dollars in lost earnings over the coming decades. Other important life trends, including high school graduation, college enrollment, and criminal arrests, are also likely to be adversely affected by years of thwarted schooling.”

If I came up and told you that a business cost us $1 trillion based on their dysfunction and their inability to deliver desired outcomes, would you continue to have faith in that business to produce what they need to produce? Probably not.

Then why do we still have faith in our public school system? That’s a head scratcher.

High Teacher Expectations Boost Long-Term Student Outcomes (EducationWeek)

EducationWeek reported this week that,

“When teachers have high expectations for students, those students do better long-term – they are more likely to earn a college degree, less likely to have a teen pregnancy, and less likely to receive public assistance as a young adult.”

“That’s according to a new study published today by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank that promotes school choice and academic rigor. The study also found that high school teachers in charter or private schools are more likely than their counterparts in traditional public schools to expect their students to complete college degrees.”

How hard is it to have high expectations for young learners? I guess it’s more difficult than I, or others, can imagine.

Honestly, I read articles like this one and I wonder what in the hell must kids think about these places called schools they are mandated to attend.

Finally, I was reading an article about the history of the school bus. If you want to read it, Google “A Brief History of the School Bus” and “Smithsonian” – and it will magically pop up. Although the following statistic has nothing to do with school bus history directly, it floored me when I read it.

And here it is:

Of the 200,000 one-room schools in operation across the country in 1915, only 1,200 remained open in 1975.

Wow. What a system transformation over a short span of 60 years.

So it got me thinking, what type of learning transformation could we see over the next 60 years, say from 2022 to 2082.

Hmmm.

Til Monday. Enjoy your weekend. It’s pouring rain in Iowa today. SVB