Friday News Roundup

It’s Friday. Time for the News Roundup.

Six Hidden (and Not-So-Hidden) Factors Driving America’s Student Absenteeism Crisis (The 74)

Schools continue to struggle getting kids to show up to their classrooms. The 74 online reported this week,

“As schools continue to recover form the pandemic, there’s one troubling COVID symptom they can’t seem to shake: record-setting absenteeism.”

“In the 2021-22 school year, more than one in four U.S. public school students missed at least 10% of school days. Before the pandemic, it was closer to one in seven, the Associated Press reported, relying on data from 40 states and the District of Columbia.”

“In New York City, the nation’s largest district, chronic absenteeism his 40%, according to district officials, meaning some 375,000 students were regularly absent. In Washington D.C., it hit 42.5%. In Detroit, it was 77%.”

Maybe kids know something about their schools – that they don’t work as well as they did.

Maybe we need to sit down with kids who have voted with their feet and ask them a simple question: “What do you want to learn?” And then let the work begin.

Student Hated ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ Their Teachers Tried to Dump It (The Washington Post)

The Washington Post reported last week that a group of teachers in Washington’s Mukiteo School District wanted to protect students from a book they saw as outdated and harmful. According to the article,

“Students first told Shanta Freeman-Miller about how it hurt to read ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ five years ago.”

“The stories came out during Wednesday meetings of the Union for Students of African Ancestry, a group that Freeman-Miller, one of the only Black teachers at Kamiak High School, founded at teens’ request. Students shared their discomfort with the way the 1960 novel about racial injustice portrays Black people: One Black teen said the book misrepresented him and other African Americans, according to meeting records reviewed by The Washington Post. Another complained the novel did not move her, because it wasn’t written about her – or for her. A third spoke about how a White teen said the n-word aloud while reading form ‘Mockingbird’ disobeying the teacher’s instructions to skip the slur, the student recalled in an interview with The Post.” She spoke on the condition of anonymity, for fear of harassment.”

The time of everyone reading a class novel has probably passed (especially given the political climate we live in now). Instead, learning leaders should ask young learners what books, authors, topics interest them, and then let the learning from that point onward.

Even as Caltech Drops Calculus Requirement, Other Competitive Colleges Expect Hard-to-Find Course (The 74)

The 74 online reported earlier this week that,

“When the prestigious California Institute of Technology announced in August it would drop calculus as an admission requirement – students must prove mastery of the subject but don’t have to take it in high school – observers of an ongoing education equity debate might have thought it was the last holdout.”

“But a survey by The 74 reveals the answer is more complex, that while some schools have revised their acceptance criteria based on the availability of rigorous courses, including calculus, others have not.”

“Queries sent to 20 top-tier colleges and universities, many of which are recognized for their strong engineering programs, found that 11 do not require it while six strongly recommend or encourage it.”

If competency-based learning is slow to arrive in our K-12 system, then our higher education institutions don’t even see it on their horizon.

Few Educators Say A-F and Numeric Grades Offer ‘Very Effective’ Feedback for Students (EducationWeek)

EducationWeek online reported this week that,

“Traditional grading systems aren’t getting an A-plus from most educators.”

“In fact, fewer than 1 in 6 educators – 13 percent – surveyed by the EdWeek Research Center earlier this year say that A through F or numeric grades are a ‘very effective way’ to give feedback to students.”

“Still, educators clearly see the system as having some merit. Nearly half – 42 percent – of the teachers, principals, and district leaders find A through F or numeric grades at least ‘somewhat effective.’ About a quarter find them ‘somewhat ineffective,’ while more than 1 in 5 – 21 percent – find them ‘very ineffective.’”

So if these numbers are right, then why haven’t faculties across the country taken it upon themselves to develop and practice evaluations that don’t center around letter and number grades?

School Voucher Critics Remain Largely Unswayed during Texas House Hearing (The Texas Tribune)

Governor Greg Abbott is having trouble getting his “voucher” bill passed in the Texas Legislature.

The Texas Tribune reported this week that,

“In the first Texas House hearing on school vouchers since May, opponents in the lower chamber remained critical of Governor Greg Abbott’s top legislative priority – and ultimately expressed frustration with the governor’s insistence to tie public education funding with a voucher program, which has brought lawmakers back to Austin for a rare fourth special session this year.”

These are the same legislators that sit by and watch the list of unacceptable schools continue to grow in Texas, as they continue to send public money to those low-performing campuses.

Vouchers are worth trying, especially if black, brown, and poor families are able to access them to create different learning opportunities for their kids other than sending them to a “sucky school” every day.

What We Know About Multi-Tiered Systems of Supports (MTSS), in Charts (EducationWeek)

EducationWeek online reported this week that,

“More districts and schools are using tiered systems of support, with an increased focus on building up students’ social-emotional skills.”

…

“In 2019, 55 percent of districts or schools were using MTSS frameworks, according to educators who responded to [a survey request]. In 2023, respondents said it grew to 74 percent of districts and schools.”

When I was a high school principal, we launched a MTSS framework designed to support learners. Here’s what happened:

We took a 50% freshman failure rate down to single digits.

We found out that are front-line teaching wasn’t very good, therefore learners failed.

Our MTSS strategies crashing the teaching/learning system, meaning that it was so hard for adult learning leaders to track their learners, the adult learning leaders basically quit intervening because they thought it was too much work.

Schools aren’t built to do MTSS well.

That’s the Friday News Roundup for November 10^th. Til Monday. SVB