Friday News Roundup

It’s Friday, so it’s time for the News Roundup.

How Districts Can Keep High-Impact Tutoring Going After ESSER Money Expires (The 74)

It seems like the only strategy working these days to help kids improve their reading, writing, and problem-solving skills is small group or one-to-one tutoring. But funding for that tutoring is questionable moving forward, with the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief money soon going away.

The 74 offered the following funding options to school districts, wanting to keep effective tutoring going, in a recent article:

Title 1, Multi-Tiered Systems of Support, AmeriCorps, Work-study, U.S. Department of Education teacher preparation funds, and U.S. Department of Labor apprenticeship funds.

The bottom line here is that there is always enough money to do what works for kids.

Forget Cheating. Here’s the Real Question About AI in Schools (EducationWeek)

Richard Culatta, the CEO of the International Society for Technology in Education, was asked the following question for an interview appearing in EducationWeek:

“AI was a huge topic at ISTE’s last annual conference…How have educators’ perceptions of AI shifted since then?”

Here’s what Culatta had to say:

“There is a level of maturity to the AI conversation that we’re just getting to. For a while, the conversation was ‘cheating or not cheating?’ And then it morphed into, ‘Look at all the cool tools!’ Neither of those conversations are really all that helpful.”

“The conversation that we really need to be having is: How are we thinking about redesigning learning for an AI world? What does that mean for skills for students? What does that mean for skills for teachers? What does teaching and learning need to look like in the AI world?”

I like Culatta’s answer. Now let’s see how many traditional school districts are willing to answer his questions, and then take those answers and build it into their strategic plan.

Cellphones in Schools: Addiction, Distraction, or Teaching Tool? (EducationWeek)

“’Cellphones are here to stay. More and more work is being done on these communication devices, as they morph into BlackBerries, hand-held calculators, phone banks, digital cameras, radios, and even televisions.’”

“So warned education professor Bruce S. Cooper and former superintendent John W. Lee as they weighed the place of cellphones in schools – back in 2006.”

“That was the year that an unevenly enforced 1988 ban on mobile devices in New York City schools sprang back into the public consciousness with a new crackdown. That policy was later dropped in 2015, but it seems everything old is new again….”

This comes from Mary Hendrie, a reporter for EducationWeek, reporting last week on the decisions school districts are making regarding cellphones and other types of social media, and their future inside classrooms and schools.

I spoke with a young Iowa K-12 principal last weekend. With pride, he told me that his district decided to “get rid of” cellphones in their schools. I didn’t say much, but what I thought was this –

Good luck.

Gen Z’s End of Year Report Card: ‘Less than Stellar’ Grades For Schools (The 74)

The customer is always right.

And, if you think the customer in schools are students, then recent news from The 74 suggests today’s customers aren’t real happy with the job their schools are doing for them – especially in the area career preparation.

“Gen Z students have handed out ‘less than stellar’ grades for their schools’ performance on skills-based learning and career focused curriculum as young people become more focused on their education leading to a job.”

“The annual ‘end of year report card’ from Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation surveyed more than 2,000 students in grades 5 through 12, who gave their schools’ an overall grade of ‘B-‘ – the same score for the second year in a row.”

I guess a B- is better than what I thought students would give our traditional school system. I was thinking a “C” or “C-,” and even lower for black, brown, and poor learners.

Smartwatches: The Next Challenge for School Cellphone Policies (EducationWeek)

I’ll save you the details. This story is about school districts, after banning cellphones from their classrooms, finding out now that students have purchased smartwatches, that are capable of doing pretty much everything a banned cellphone isn’t allowed to do.

This is going to be a vicious cycle: Apple invents a new type of technology. School districts ban that technology. Samsung invents another new type of technology. School districts ban that technology. And the cycle goes on and on and on and on.

Until one day, we wake up and figure out that these new types of technology are the beginning of a new type of learning for our kids.

The question is: when will that be?

The Topic That Didn’t Get a Single Mention in Biden-Trump Debate (EducationWeek)

Public education was not mentioned in last night’s debate.

If you watched the debate, you must realize that we have other worries other than our two presidential nominees arguing about banning cellphones, closing libraries, or why Jesus can’t read.

Those worries circle around a nominee who lies and a nominee who is just too old to lead the country.

I’ll be off until July 15^th. Til then. SVB