Friday News Roundup

It’s Friday! Time for the News Roundup.

Why Schools Are Welcoming Intergenerational Tutoring (Reasons to be Cheerful)

Reasons to be Cheerful, an online newsletter started by David Byrne, a founding member of the band Talking Heads, reprinted this article from The 74 online. For those of you looking for what’s good in the world, check out Reasons to be Cheerful. Here’s part of the report on intergenerational tutoring:

“[Marge] Mangelsdorf spends several days each week in empty classrooms and corridors like these, working with kids through Oasis Intergenerational Tutoring. The program, which pairs volunteers with students for 30-45 minutes each week, is overseen by the Oasis Institute, a St. Louis-based nonprofit that promotes healthy aging through a mix of community involvement and continuing education. According to the Institute’s leadership, intergenerational tutoring has spread to 15 states, though its greatest concentration is in Missouri, where it began 35 years ago.”

Why couldn’t we start a national intergenerational tutoring program, using the St. Louis operation as a model? It seems like this would be an investment with substantial return.

Researchers Study Six New England High Schools to Find Path for Student Success (The 74)

The 74 online reported this week that,

“A new study looking at how six New England high schools figure out the best ways to help students succeed post-pandemic identified moving away from ‘college for all’ and grappling with whether to maintain COVID-era leniency as key themes.”

“The researchers found these schools, five out of six with high numbers of students of color and those on free and reduced-price lunch, asking how to offer students multiple pathways to postsecondary success, beyond just college, without lowering academic rigor or expectations. Chosen because they had a track record of innovation, the schools were questioning whether the accommodations given to students during the throes of remote learning or right after the return to in-person instruction were still serving them well.”

Multiple pathways, flexibility, and negotiating with students will serve any school well moving forward. Schools who still insist on a “one size fits all” curriculum and classroom instruction approach are doing their students a disservice as we move beyond one quarter of the 21^st century.

Report: Schools Won’t Recover from COVID Absenteeism Crisis Until at Least 2030 (The 74)

The 74 online reported this week that,

“The rate of students chronically missing school got so bad during the pandemic that it will likely be 2030 before classrooms return to pre-COVID norms, a new report says.”

“But even that prediction rests on optimistic assumptions about continued improvement in the coming years. For some states, it could take longer. In Louisiana, Oregon, and South Carolina, for example, the percentage of students chronically absent for at least 10% of the school year went up in 2022-23, according to the analysis from the American Enterprise Institute.”

If they could, school would be better served by using time differently moving forward. Part of the reason young learners can’t catch up with their reading, writing, and problem-solving skills is that schools are locked into a 45-minute class, a 7 ½-hour day, a 5-day week, and a 180-day year of teaching and learning. Unless schools can break away from the “time trap” they are caught in, they will continue to struggle “catching kids up.”

New Policy Would Bar Los Angeles Charters from Hundreds of Public School Buildings (The 74)

The 74 online reported this week that,

“Charter schools will be barred from hundreds of Los Angeles Unified District school campuses under a new policy that is among the most restrictive of its kind.”

…

“The regulations prevent co-locations in low-performing schools, community schools that provide social services, and schools in the district’s Black Student Achievement Plan – immediately impacting about 21 charter schools – now co-located in those buildings – enrolling thousands of students who may need to move to new LA Unified campuses in the fall.”

…

“The long-simmering conflict over charter schools in Los Angeles reached a flashpoint in September when the board issued a resolution compelling (L.A. school superintendent Alberto] Carvalho to create the policy and spelled out many of the specific components it should contain.”

…

“’Schools that are struggling the most to educate our students should not be added, continuously, more things to do,’ said Goldberg, ‘like figure out a bell schedule, and how to share the cafeteria and how to share the playground.’”

This is sad news, especially for those young learners whose families will not have to find another school to attend, but not unexpected. My experience negotiating partnerships with traditional schools and charters tells me that, even though the potential of these two entities working together for the betterment of all kids always had a huge upside, the reality was that neither played well with each other in the proverbial “sandbox.”

It seems that L.A. might be taking a step backward here.

How to Fix Chronic Absenteeism in America’s Schools (On Point)

This week I listened to an On Point broadcast focused on the absentee problem many of our traditional public schools are facing. After an hour of listening, there was one point On Point missed. During the program, at no time did anyone suggest that one of the reasons kids have stopped coming to school recently is that students, and their families, have found out just how bad traditional school is for them (the students probably already knew it.) As a dear friend, who served as a school board member, once suggested: “Kids often vote with their feet. If they don’t feel they are being well served, they will just walk away.”

I’m a big fan of On Point, but I was disappointed that no one discussed this possibility.

Now What? Historically Underperforming PISA Scores are a Call to Action (The 74 Webinar)

America’s math scores have tanked on the most recent PISA, the Programme for International Student Assessment. This should be no surprise given our public school’s dismal performance on America’s test – the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

What disappointed me during this webinar was the pathetic response from the panelists regarding what action should be taken to fix our problem-solving ailments. Just like the cries for “thoughts and prayers” after a school shooting, this panel (including a U.S. Department of Education leader, a college professor, and an international testing expert) cried out for “a call to action.”

A call to action? We’ve heard this before.

What’s needed is a plan, hard work, and a new learning system. Calls to action based on no plan, laziness, and the same old teaching and learning system we’ve had over the past 50 to 100 years isn’t going to cut it.

Have a great weekend. Til Monday. SVB