The following resources focus on the educational climate and betterment of those serving the K–12 educational community.
Training the Brain Helps People with Dyslexia Researchers at the Center for the Study of Learning at Georgetown University say training the brain can help people with dyslexia learn to read better. Director Guinevere Eden believes the brain wasn’t designed to read. Everyone has to train their brain to do this. “As everyone learns to read, those Bs and Ds and Ps and Qs sort themselves out. For people with dyslexia, it might just take a little bit longer,” she says (Emanuel, NPR).
The Migration Policy Institute has just released sociodemographic portraits of parents (both immigrant and U.S.-born) of young children, from birth through age 8, including Fact Sheets for 30 states. Of note, immigrants comprised 23 percent of all parents with young children (ages 0-8) in the United States, or almost 8.4 million in total as of 2010–14. Twenty-four percent lived below the federal poverty level, compared with 15 percent of their native-born counterparts.
Building a Grad Nation A majority of states increased the number of students graduating high school on time, and put themselves in good position to reach a 90 percent high school graduation rate by the Class of 2020. However, this year the national rate of improvement— 0.9 percentage points—puts the nation off pace to reach the 90 percent goal, and marked the first time since 2011 the national graduation rate increased by less than one point. Of the 47 states reporting a cohort-based graduation rate since 2011, Iowa became the first state to reach 90 percent, and 20 other states are on pace to reach a 90 percent graduation rate. Five of these on-pace states (Nebraska, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Texas, and Wisconsin) are within two percentage points of the goal. When solely examining rates of increase between 2013 and 2014, seven additional states exceeded the pace needed to get them to 90 percent. These states will have to maintain this accelerated pace to achieve the goal. Twenty-one remaining states are currently off track to reaching 90 percent by 2020. Florida’s 2013-14 graduation rate is 76.1 percent. (America’s Promise Alliance)
MO—What Should New Teachers Know Before They Set Foot in a Classroom? The embrace of teacher perspectives in how to transform teacher preparation comes at a key moment of change: The current crop of pre-service teachers is the tail end of the millennial generation. They’re also the first cohort of prospective teachers to be educated entirely under 21st century education reforms, including No Child Left Behind and the Common Core state standards. (Hechinger Report, December 14)
Social and Emotional Learning: Feedback and Communications Insights from the Field Market researchers explore the linguistic landscape of the many terms used to describe non-academic skills, finding some familiarity with “social and emotional learning.”
Evaluation of Citizen Schools’ Expanded Learning Time Model: Final Report An evaluation of the Citizen Schools expanded-learning model offers insights into expanded learning partnerships. Finances and campus stability are the two most common concerns about the sustainability of Citizen Schools programs.
Summer Learning Each year students grow in their reading and mathematics abilities during the academic school year only to have some of the learning fade away over the summer months. This phenomenon is called “summer learning loss” and is well documented by researchers. This summer, educators, parents and state governments across the country are working together to encourage students and their caregivers to access free online tools designed to promote reading, maintain math skills and inspire summer learning. The Council of Chief State School Officers, in partnership with MetaMetrics, is coordinating national, state-led summer learning initiatives to bolster student achievement during summer break.
Aligning Evaluation: How Much Do Teacher Evaluation Rubrics Emphasize Common Core Instruction? American Institutes for Research (AIR) explored the level of alignment that exists between state-mandated teacher evaluation and support systems and statewide adoption of new, more rigorous and focused student learning standards based on the Common Core State Standards. In particular, the brief contributes to the discussion of whether teacher evaluation rubrics contain specific instructional guidance to teachers that will help them teach the things they have been asked to teach in the manner they have been asked to teach them.
