Now that the most acute phase of the Covid crisis is over, public conversation has turned to the millions of students who are still struggling academically and emotionally—and how our nation’s schools ought to respond. Decisions that education leaders make right now will determine whether this generation of students recovers or continues to lose ground. Read more about The Power of Expectations in District and Charter Schools[…]
Released by ERS, ESSER Hold’em is a modified version of Budget Hold’em for Districts that helps districts plan, focus investments, and navigate tradeoffs in spending ESSER dollars among the 5 Power Strategies that have been identified. These five strategies address critical student needs now and lay a sustainable foundation for lasting improvement. The game will Read more about ESSER Hold’em for Districts[…]
Writing for EdNote, authors Alyssa Rafa and Cassidy Francies present three state policy levers to support teacher mental health. Excerpts from the piece appear below: While state policymakers have been working to improve student mental health for years, there has not been much legislative action related to teacher mental health. It is, however, an issue Read more about 3 State Policy Levers to Support Teacher Mental Health[…]
Writing for FutureEd, Phyllis Jordan and Bella DiMarco explore trends in federal COVID ed aid spending. Excerpts from the piece appear below: To understand state and local policymakers’ strategies for bolstering teaching resources in the wake of the pandemic, FutureEd analyzed the COVID relief spending plans of 5,000 districts and charter organizations, representing 74% of Read more about 7 Ways 5,000 Districts & Charter Networks Are Spending Relief Funds on Teachers[…]
Recently in The 74, Kevin Mahnken looked at long-term scores from NAEP that show unprecedented score declines for nine-year-olds in math and generational literacy loss. Two decades of growth for American students in reading and math were wiped away by just two years of pandemic-disrupted learning, according to national test scores. Dismal releases from the Read more about ‘Nation’s Report Card’: Two Decades of Growth Wiped Out by Two Years of Pandemic[…]
As schools reopened last fall, many education leaders and stakeholders predicted that most online learning would fall away, and teachers and students would begin to recover from an unprecedented event. But new data from the Christensen Institute’s ongoing, nationally-representative surveys of hundreds of teachers and administrators have uncovered fascinating insights into what’s actually happening in Read more about A revealing reality: Spring 2022 survey of teachers and administrators[…]
Writing for Chalkbeat, Matt Barnum explores the takeaways from the latest data on pandemic learning loss. Excerpts from the piece appear below: In the last year, students in younger grades have recovered between 15% and 35% of the learning they had lost, according to data released by the testing group NWEA. That’s the good news, Read more about The state of learning loss: 7 takeaways from the latest data[…]
Recently in The 74, Bella Dimarco and Phyllis Jordan reviewed the ESSER spending pattern of different states, according to their political persuasion. Excerpts from the piece appear below: As school districts have decided how to spend billions in federal Covid-relief aid, there has been more convergence on priorities—and even a few surprises, according to a Read more about How Blue States & Red States Use COVID Relief Funds Differently to Aid Schools[…]
Writing for Governing Magazine, Carl Smith chronicles the nation’s growing school attendance crisis. Excerpts of the piece appear below: For K-12 students, chronic absence, generally defined as missing 10 percent or more of school days, has escalated into a “full-scale crisis” since 2019, says a new report from the nonprofit Attendance Works, with two- and Read more about The Nation Faces School Attendance and Graduation Crises[…]
Along with collaborators from Dartmouth, the CALDER Center at the American Institutes for Research, and the nonprofit testing group NWEA, Harvard economist Tom Kane released a paper this May incorporating pre- and post-pandemic testing data from over 2 million students in 49 states. Its conclusion: Remote instruction was a “primary driver of widening achievement gaps” Read more about Harvard Economist Offers Gloomy Forecast on Reversing Pandemic Learning Loss[…]
Though kids are learning this year, many have fallen even further behind grade level. A new report from Brookings, written by Paul Hill and Kate Destler, draws from a national survey of school districts and in-depth interviews with six school districts. Highlights from the piece appear below: Many school and district leaders had hoped to Read more about Restoring Pandemic Losses will Require Major Changes in Schools and Classrooms, Superintendents Say[…]
The global COVID-19 pandemic pulled back the curtain on the growing need for greater student agency and student engagement. As we rethink the future of education in a post-pandemic world, learner agency must be at the center of learning designs and learning models so that we can support students anytime, anyplace, and at any pace. Read more about Agency by Design: Making Learning Engaging[…]
In partnership with their funders, the Center on Reinventing Public Education launched a national initiative that brought together researchers from around the country to track and analyze the pandemic pod movement. The goal was simple: to learn from the families, educators, and community-based organizations who stepped in during the crisis to solve urgent challenges and, Read more about Crisis Breeds Innovation: Pandemic Pods and the Future of Education[…]
Writing for the Hechinger Report, Jill Barshay reviews new research that finds what teachers were saying throughout the pandemic – it is madness to teach students in the classroom and those joining by computer simultaneously. Excerpts from the piece appear below: Although educators are trying to keep schools open during the pandemic, they still have Read more about PROOF POINTS: Combining remote and in-person learning led to chaos, study finds[…]
Writing for the Hechinger Report, Jill Barshay reviews new research that finds what teachers were saying throughout the pandemic – it is madness to teach students in the classroom and those joining by computer simultaneously. Excerpts from the piece appear below: Although educators are trying to keep schools open during the pandemic, they still have Read more about Combining remote and in-person learning led to chaos, study finds[…]
Recently in The 74, Phyllis Jordan and Bella Dimarco reviewed a new FutureEd analysis of plans for spending ESSER III emergency relief funds, including more than 2,600 school districts serving 53 percent of the nation’s public school students. The analysis suggests that the higher the poverty rate in a district’s student population, the more likely Read more about How Districts With Different Poverty Levels Are Spending COVID Relief Funds[…]