edWeb team member Doug Lerner lives in Japan and volunteered for the Tokyo Olympics. It was great to follow along with him for some of the behind-the-scenes happenings. We hope you enjoy reading his account of the experience.
After the sudden switch to remote and hybrid learning models at the start of the pandemic, the use of online tools and resources may seem like less of a concern now, but ensuring that students’ data remains protected is still a priority, especially as it is a federal requirement.
Congress is entering a period of intense activity before it departs for its August summer recess, which it terms a “District Work Period.” Before August, the House Appropriations Committee intends to mark up all of its FY22 spending bills and Congress will attempt to reach an agreement on and perhaps even pass a trillion-dollar infrastructure package. Waiting in the wings is a second multi-trillion-dollar budget reconciliation package that could contain major education initiatives including funding for school infrastructure, free community college, and teacher professional development.
The Tonasket School District (WA) experienced two student suicides in the last three months, surprising everyone. Steve McCullough, the district superintendent, described the students as active in high school and great athletes with bright futures. Nobody thought they had any problems.
According to a CoSN report, more than half of school districts and about one-third of public schools in the United States are in rural areas. Rural communities have unique challenges, ranging from poverty and vast travel distances to a lack of affordable internet access.
When something dramatic happens, like releasing student achievement scores, there’s often an outcry over educational inequities, and there are statements and calls to action to do better. Most of the time, though, the initial energy dissipates, and nothing changes. During an edWebinar hosted by AASA, The School Superintendents Association and AASA’s Leadership Network, John Krownapple and Floyd Cobb, Ph.D., authors of Belonging Through a Culture of Dignity: The Keys to Successful Equity Implementation, discussed why belonging and dignity are just as important as access and opportunity when it comes to educational equity.
If your students struggle with math—or don’t like it very much—singing (and some dancing) might cure their distress. Music is a bonafide learning medium that helps students grasp and remember information and, it turns out, successfully imparts mathematical thinking.
What are some of the things that helped us survive the past year with the coronavirus? At the Education Research & Development Institute (ERDI) conference in Chicago in July, we hosted a Women’s Fellowship Breakfast for 50 women leaders in education, mostly school district administrators, plus education industry leaders. We spent time reflecting on the things that helped us get through this past year of chaos and crisis. Some of us were gathering in person for the first time in a very long time, and the mood was joyful and thankful, and that was reflected in comments we gathered from the guests.
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed and, in many ways, worsened the digital divide and other inequitable aspects of America’s education system. However, it also created opportunities to develop more equitable outcomes, based on the widespread switch to digital learning experiences and new education models.
In a recent edWebinar, sponsored by Scholastic Digital Solutions, the presenters discussed the reality of racial violence and inequity that students of color face and what we as educators and administrators can do to confront it rather than perpetuate it. They identified racial violence as violence incurred by students of color that can be overt and covert, taken for granted, an act of invisibilization, or the erasure of students’ identities and realities.