Friday News Roundup

It’s Friday. Time for the Roundup.

How Indianapolis High Schools Are Using ‘Badges’ to Help Students Demonstrate Skills – and Land Jobs (The 74)

The 74 reported this week that,

“Indianapolis high school principal Stacey Brewer faces a challenge schools nationwide share as they struggle to connect their students to jobs: Teaching the ‘soft skills’ of the workplace.”

“Like a digital version of Boy Scout merit badges, the six Job Ready Indy badges – Mindsets, Self-Management, Learning Strategies, Social Skills, Workplace Skills and Launch a Career – verify what students have learned and serve as soft skills credentials in the local job market.”

“Within those categories, students are taught about professionalism, time management and attention to detail. Since launching in 2018, more than 3,400 young people, mostly high school juniors and seniors in the Indianapolis area, have earned at least one badge.”

News like this pops up every once in a while. The problem is that programs like this are too isolated and prone to end based on a change in district leadership, either at the superintendent or school board level.

But hey, I’m all for any program that better connects school world with the real world.

Survey: Nearly Half of Students Started Last Fall Below Grade Level – Usually in Math and Reading – but Tutoring Remains Elusive (The 74)

The 74 reported this week that,

“Nearly half of the nation’s students entered school last fall below grade level in at least one subject, most often in reading or math, according to new data released.”

“That’s essentially unchanged from last school year, but significantly worse than before the pandemic, when only 36% of students started school off track, the National Center for Education Statistics has found.”

“Additionally, over 80% of the 1,026 schools that responded to the latest School Pulse Panel survey said they’re providing some form of tutoring to help students catch up. But the latest post-pandemic snapshot reinforces the sense that the pace of academic recovery remains show.”

Our public school system is an ocean liner that is difficult to turn. What we need are speed boats – not ocean liners.

Stockton, California: What Happens When a Dysfunctional District Gets $241 Million (The 74)

According the The 74 this week,

“When Congress approved $190 billion to combat the educational devastation wrought by the pandemic, the Stockton, California, school system was practically the poster child for a district in need.”

“Nearly 80% of students in the Central Valley district live in poverty. High COVID infection rates were shutting down packing plants where many of their parents work, and when schools reopened, more than a third of students were chronically absent.”

“But almost three years after the first relief dollars began flowing to school districts, Stockton has spent only a fourth of the $241 million it received, overcome by dysfunction in its central office and deep mistrust among board members.”

The next time someone tells you schools need more money, share this story with them.

There’s enough money. We just aren’t using it the right way.

The School That Solved Its Teacher Shortage by Recruiting Its Students (Reasons to be Cheerful, reprinted from The 74)

Reasons to be Cheerful shared an article this week, originally published by The 74, that reports,

“Like his colleagues nationwide, Florida principal Adam Lane worried about teacher shortages caused by the pandemic – but he’s come up with a unique solution that’s kept classrooms filled.”

“Lane’s strategy: Tapping into his alumni network and recruiting students to become teachers and other staff while they’re still enrolled at Haines City High School in Central Florida.”

“’The mentality of most principals is to graduate them prepare them for the real world and send them off,’ Lane told The 74. ‘I started thinking, why am I sending them off when I’ve got all these vacancies? Let me start inviting them back and work with them so they can make a great career right here with me.’”

“Today, 35 of the school’s 147 teachers are Haines City High School alumni, with graduates dating back to June 2018.”

Peer learning is effective, probably more so than some adult learning leader/young learner relationship.

Fixing a System that Set Up Youth to Fail: Rhode Island Overhauls High School (The 74)

The 74 reported this week that,

“Rhode Island is phasing in new standards for high school graduation after a multi-year evaluation revealed that nearly half of graduates were not meeting the minimum criteria for entry into the state’s public colleges and universities.”

“’This is going to be a gamechanger for us across the state,’ Education Commissioner Angelica Infante-Green said.”

No it’s not. Rhode Island high schools, and most of their public school system, has been broken for years. Commissioner Infante-Green would be wise to begin thinking about creating a new system of learning for her young Rhode Islanders.

‘Leave Our Public Schools Alone’: Des Moines School Board Chair tells GOP Lawmakers (The Des Moines Register)

The Des Moines Register reported this week,

“Des Moines School Board Chair Teree Caldwell-Johnson has had enough of Republican lawmakers meddling in how and what public students are taught.”

“’Leave our public schools alone, we are doing just fine.’ Caldwell-Johnson said Monday in response to a question about what lawmakers can do – besides boost funding – to help students succeed. ‘We don’t need your interventions around curriculum, what we teach, how we teach, who we teach, and Des Moines Public Schools has been in existence for 116 years and we’ve been doing pretty darn well.’”

Last fall, The Register reported that,

“Fewer Des Moines Public Schools’ Black male students are proficient in math compared to last year, a new state assessment shows.”

“Math assessments, discussed during a Des Moines School Board meeting, show in the spring 2022 tests that fewer than 18% of 11^th-grade Black male students were proficient in math, according to a draft of the board’s goals and interim goals proposal.”

And Caldwell-Johnson, who is African-American by the way, thinks that “we’ve been doing pretty darn well”?

Please.

The Push for a $60K Base Teacher Salary Gains Steam as Bernie Sanders Signs On (EducationWeek)

According to EducationWeek online,

“Senator Bernie Sanders will soon introduce legislation to pay teachers a minimum of $60,000 a year, complementing similar efforts in the House as the conversation about low teacher wages picks up steam.”

We paid our first-year learning coaches $100,000+ when we ran our pilot personalized learning lab school in the Houston museum district years ago. Over three years, 95% of the young learners showed at least 1 ½ years of growth in their reading, writing, and problem-solving skills.

It all depends on what system you invest in.

I’ll be away until February 24^th. Have a great weekend. SVB