Friday News Roundup

It’s Friday, and it’s going to hit 50 degrees in Iowa! Time for the News Roundup.

New Research: Done Right, Virtual Tutoring Nearly Rivals In-Person Version (The 74)

According to The 74 this week,

“High-dosage, in-person tutoring gets results, recent research suggests. But as federal funding for remediation dries up and school struggle to raise students’ post-COVID skills, educators have been hoping for a lifeline in the form of live, online tutoring.”

…

“Until recently, virtual tutoring had scant evidence that it works very well, with few rigorous studies of its effectiveness. But new findings, including two recent studies from Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Research and Reform in Education, are beginning to offer a different narrative: Done well and with the same safeguards as traditional in-person tutoring, the virtual version can be nearly as good.”

Here’s the question: Given this new research on the effectiveness of online tutoring, will traditional school districts commit funding to help young learners suffering from learning loss the opportunity to catch up in their reading, writing, and problem-solving skills? Or will our K-12 system continue to conduct business as usual?

Public school educators have never been good at paying attention to research.

What 4 New Studies Say About How Districts Can Attract – and Retain – Teachers (EducationWeek)

According to a EducationWeek article released this week, here is what 4 new studies say about how districts can attract – and retain – teachers:

“A teacher’s starting pay can have long-term consequences.”

A University of Chicago researcher found the highest-paid quartile of Oregon’s new teachers, who started their careers between 2007 and 2011, earned as much as $40,000 more per year than those in the bottom 25 percent of pay – and those initial gaps largely persisted over the next five years unless the teacher left for a higher-paying district, or left the state entirely.

“Working conditions have continued to fall since the pandemic.”

A forthcoming study from the University of Missouri focusing on Illinois teachers suggests that teacher working conditions not only haven’t improved since the pandemic but may be deteriorating faster than before the disruption.

“Evolution of for-profit, contract teachers.”

It seems school districts are getting out of the teacher employment business. Instead, they are contracting with for-profit agencies, i.e. staffing services, to hire teacher for their classrooms.”

“Contract teachers are employed by a staffing agency instead of an individual district, and they may work different times and hours, and at significantly lower pay, than traditional teachers.”

“Gaps in district attrition increase staffing pressure.”

Two researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Kansas found that teacher churn is on the rise in the years after the pandemic. And while these researchers found that teacher attrition may be stabilizing, the gaps between districts remain a concern.

Lower starting pay, poor working conditions, abandoning hiring responsibilities, and an unstable workforce.

Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

These High Schoolers Are Suing for Better Schools. Can They Win? (EducationWeek)

Kentucky high school students, aided by an education advocacy group, are suing their state government for not providing them with quality schools.

“That’s the complaint at the heart of a new lawsuit filed Jan. 14 in the Franklin County circuit court against the state of Kentucky. [12 high school students] from across the state are the lead plaintiffs, along with the Kentucky Student Voice Team, an education advocacy group led by K-12 students.”

“The suit alleges that state officials have fallen short of the promises they made in the early 1990s, when the Kentucky supreme court declared the state’s approach to public school funding unconstitutional, and ordered sweeping reform.”

“Students now argue the state must provide robust educational opportunities that were previously mandated by the state supreme court – including literacy and civics instruction, mental health services, arts education, and college and career readiness initiatives. Those investments are essential no matter the cost, the complaint says.”

I wonder how many school districts could be sued by students because they aren’t meeting those students’ needs when it comes to basic educational offerings?

As Biden Leaves Office, What Will His Education Legacy Be? (EducationWeek)

On the President’s final weekend in office, here’s how EducationWeek described Joe Biden’s impact on K-12 education over the past four years:

“Much of the administration’s K-12 legacy comes down to the distribution of an unprecedented sum of money to the nation’s schools to recover from the pandemic – $122 billion from Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act, more than the federal government annually spends on K-12 education.”

“But absent from Biden’s term was an aggressive policy agenda before Congress to counteract a historic decline in student achievement and focus the public’s attention on fixing it. There was no regulatory push, for example, for evidence-based reading instruction as student achievement in reading (and math) his its lowest levels in decades. Districts had wide latitude to decide how to spend their pandemic relief funds. And although [Secretary of Education Miguel] Cardona criticized the use of standardized tests as a ‘hammer,’ there was no legislative effort to restructure the country’s test-based accountability system.”

Biden’s Education Grades: F on FAFSA, An Incomplete on Student Loan Forgiveness (NPR)

According to a NPR report today,

“NPR spoke with more than a dozen educators, researchers, advocates and policy experts, including two former U.S. secretaries of education, to find out how they would grade Biden’s Education Department.”

“The results varied depending on the politics of the evaluator, with conservatives being harsher in their assessments. But there was some agreement: for example, that Biden’s greatest success was in guiding schools out of the COVID-19 era. Most observers also agreed that, when it comes to education overall, Biden will most likely be remembered for a pair of high-profile failures: the FAFSA rollout and his unkept promise to provide broad student loan forgiveness.”

“Of the 14 experts NPR consulted for this wholly unscientific poll, the Biden administration got no A’s, a bunch of B’s, two hedgie B-/C+’s, two C’s, two D’s, two F’s and one ‘Incomplete’ for work left unfinished.”

“That averages out to be…pretty average, a C.”

Funny, “C” is the grade EducationWeek has given our overall K-12 educational system over the years.

I guess we like C’s.

I’ll be off Monday celebrating MLK Day, but ABPTL will return Tuesday, January 21^st. Til then. Have a great weekend. -30 degree wind chills predicted for Iowa on Inauguration Day. SVB