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Matthew Lynch published in Education Leadership, First Year Teachers, Teachers

Why More Teachers Need a Leadership Mindset

Teachers are unequivocally the leaders of their classrooms. Regardless of the course’s level or subject, teachers provide direction, instructions, guidance, and motivation to their classes, stepping directly into the responsibilities of a leader within any business. Yet, only the most accomplished teachers ― those recognized with awards and praise ― view themselves as leaders; in fact, most teachers lack the training to provide the leadership their students need to excel.

For the sake of the students, it is vital that more teachers learn leadership skills and qualities. By examining how renowned teacher-leaders think and act and by exploring how teachers can develop the proper mindset, more schools can benefit from having true leaders in classrooms.

How Recognized Teacher-Leaders Behave

Though modern education systems like Common Core are designed to limit the amount of variance between teachers, it is impossible to disagree that some teachers are better than others. Superior teachers are often recognized with awards and special responsibilities ― both of which mark them as teacher-leaders.

A study on teacher-leaders discovered that these unique educators behave differently than typical teachers. Though their specific actions depended on their tasks and schools, in general, teacher-leaders could effortlessly employ well-known leadership skills to organize and empower fellow teachers and students ― skills such as building trust, inspiring self-reliance, modeling approachability, identifying obstacles, and juggling a variety of responsibilities. Ultimately, such skills work to benefit students and teachers alike by improving the environment and facilitating learning.

What Leadership Training Can Bring to Schools

Though administrators tend to receive credit for the success or failure of schools, teachers are responsible for helping students excel. On average, a school administrator remains in a position or at an institution for three to four years; comparatively, most teachers remain in the profession for more than a decade, and many stick to a single school. Therefore, teachers hold the institutional memory, and they develop the school culture. When more teachers develop the leadership mindset, the school is bound to succeed.

In the study mentioned above, teacher-leaders were found to provide significant bonuses to their schools. For one, teachers learn to overcome challenges of their profession without consulting administration, which saves a school time and money. Additionally, teacher-leaders tend to be less socially isolated, which is a common problem among American educators.

Many teachers begin to feel separated from society due to the overwhelming work they must complete each week, and loneliness is a dangerous predictor of a number of health issues. However, by learning how to function as a leader, teachers can prevent feelings of isolation. Finally, teacher-leaders tend to exhibit more personal growth than their non-leader peers. Teacher-leaders are more likely to seek intellectual growth, perhaps through advanced degrees that will benefit them in their profession, and they are more likely to achieve of personal goals unrelated to work, thereby making a workforce of teacher-leaders happier, healthier, and more able to help students succeed.

leadership-2

How Teachers Can Grow a Leadership Mindset

Unfortunately, just as some teachers are notably better than others, some teachers might not naturally adopt the mindset of a leader. Therefore, school systems must actively develop teacher-leaders through carefully designed culture and programs.

Typically, school administrators initiate the development of the leadership mindset by having a vision and crafting a plan, but self-made teacher-leaders can also instigate leadership training in their fellow educators by working alongside open-minded administrators. A school must have sufficient support from its community and staff to foster leadership in its teachers. In particular, parents must learn the benefits of leadership in the classroom, and staff must understand and accept the imminent changes to their roles. A leadership development program for teachers will not excel without the interest and encouragement of those it concerns.

Most importantly, teachers must remember that it takes time and effort to become a leader, especially when skills such as perseverance, building rapport, and facilitating communication do not come naturally. Administrators and existing teacher-leaders must push for the change they want to see, celebrating any and all successes and pressing their peers for even more progress.

Though not every teacher looks or feels like a leader, it is important for teachers to develop the leadership mindset. By employing leaders’ skills and qualities, teachers can do more for their schools and their students than they might think possible ― and their eagerness to do the impossible is exactly why we need leaders around.

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Matthew Lynch published in Bullying, Education Leadership, Education News, Teachers

Could Cyberbullying Be Causing a Rise in Absenteeism?

Seventy-one percent of teens use more than one social networking site.

Think about that statistic for a second. Roughly seven out of every ten teens are sifting through a combination of Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter and a multitude of other sites. Ninety-two percent of teens browse the internet daily, and 24 percent report they are “online constantly.”

Technology is now the common way of life, especially for teens. With the widespread use of this technology, it should not be surprising teens have adopted an age-old practice to fit into this digital age — bullying.

Cyberbullying as a practice is simple to understand. Teens pick on other teens through the use of technological platforms. And yes, it is a big deal. Almost 43 percent of kids have reported they have been cyberbullied. So, when kids are being harassed through social media or even in person, what is their defense? How can they prevent this? Many think there is only one answer. And that’s to simply not show up to school.

Absenteeism is not a new issue for the education community. One of the educator’s main jobs is to take attendance and make sure their students are showing up to class. If they don’t show up, then it is the educator’s responsibility to notify the administration of an absent child. New studies that look into absenteeism give stunning results that should be raising red flags.

In a study that encompassed over 500 school districts, it was found that 30 percent of students missed at least three weeks of school for the entire year. Three weeks equals out to 15 days of learning and development these kids miss out on. While this statistic is alarming, the question that naturally comes up is what is causing this high percentage of absences. While sickness and family issues are a natural part of the process, ABC News conducted a study on cyberbullying and found some intriguing results.

According to the ABC study, 160,000 students stay home from school every day because of bullying. That means 160,000 students are not getting a proper education because of the presence of bullying in all forms and shapes. It may blow you away, but it’s apparent that bullying is a serious problem in school and should not, under any circumstance, be ignored or thrown to the wayside.

Specifically, cyberbullying is a tough act to stop. While teachers can break up fights and keep students away from each other physically, the online arena is a whole different world. Harassment doesn’t just stop when the kids go home for the day. It follows them.

Facebook posts, insulting tweets and horrific Instagram pictures are all tools for cyberbullies. And then there are the texts, which put down the victim and pummel their mind until they believe what the bully is saying.

With cyberbulling being so prevalent, it’s hard to contain it and stop it. Technology is great in so many respects and is used quite often in the classroom. Chromebooks are employed in many schools on a regular basis for testing and enhancing the students’ learning experience. Built-in projectors that hang on the classroom ceiling allow teachers and students to explore any question they have about a topic as the internet is just a click and keystroke away. Technology isn’t going anywhere and is already becoming a normal method of teaching in the classroom.

The technology in the classroom also allows for a diversity of experiences to be seen, felt and heard. Students who learn better by doing can participate in experiential learning on their laptops while students who listen well can watch examples of their lessons play out on their computers. Technology allows all types of learning to occur, which is the goal of every teacher who cares about their students.

While correlation does not prove causation, technology does open up a new avenue for bullying. As with most things in life, there are good things and bad things associated with it. Taking away technology is not going to solve the problem of cyberbullying and absenteeism. Instead, educators and parents need to come up with a strategy to monitor their students’ and children’s activities online.

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Matthew Lynch published in Higher Education

Public universities are under threat – not just by outside reformers

Brendan Cantwell, Michigan State University

A new documentary, “Starving the Beast,” recently examined the state of public higher education. Directed by Austin-based award-winning documentarian Steve Mims, the film argues that a network of right-wing think tanks and educational reformers are undermining public universities. It suggests that America’s great public universities may die from a thousand cuts unless policymakers change course.

My experience as a higher education policy researcher leads me to share many of Mims’ concerns. There are many serious challenges facing public universities.

However, my research also shows more than a right wing conspiracy is to blame for the condition of public higher education today.

Let’s first look at what the film tells us

This film’s story has many villains and few heroes. It describes how conservative politicians, think tank wonks, education reformers and wealthy political donors work together to transform public universities. According to Mims, they have two goals. The first is to run public universities like businesses. The second is to stop universities from teaching and research that contradict conservative values.

Have universities really been idyllic bastions of academic freedom?
Kimberly Vardeman, CC BY

The film shows how many recent reforms are ideologically motivated. For example, one idea that motivates reform today is economist Arthur Laffer’s “trickle-down economics.” Laffer theorizes that all government spending slows economic growth and innovation.

Laffer’s ideas lead reformers to believe reducing state support for higher education will boost the economy and prompt universities to become more efficient.

The other concept that has gained much traction is Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen’s idea of “disruptive innovation,” which holds that established organizations innovate only when upstart competitors upend their business model. For the reformers this means promoting for-profit colleges to compete with public universities.

Anti-tax lobby groups like Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) are also implicated in the film. Since 1986 many elected Republicans have pledged to ATR never to raise taxes, making it hard to adequately fund higher education.

The results of all of this, according to Mims, are devastating budget cuts, program closures, and the erosion of academic freedom.

But here’s the problem: In focusing on contemporary developments, the film implies that public universities were, until recently, well-supported, idyllic bastions of intellectual freedom.

In creating this impression, Mims indulges in what I describe as higher education critics’ tendency “to reject the present by pointing to a more perfect past.” Idealizing the past may tell a good story but it ignores the long history of political struggle that has led to the present crisis.

Why there’s another side to the story

Let’s consider the recent history of some of the challenges facing public universities.

Declining funding for higher education has been a serious problem in recent years. After the Great Recession in 2008 public universities in most states experienced dramatic funding cuts. But these cuts followed decades of decline.

A 2015 report of the American Academies of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) shows that in 1990 14.6 percent of state budgets went to higher education, but by 2014, this share had dropped to 9.4 percent.

I share the assessment that the states invest too little in higher education. Decline in state funding has led to increased tuition. But, as the AAAS report shows, other demands on state budgets, including increased health care spending, partly explain declines in higher education funding.

Research does show that Republican governors and Republican-controlled legislatures fund higher education less generously than Democratic governments. Nevertheless, some of the policies that weaken public universities have enjoyed bipartisan support. For example, policies allowing more public funding to go to for-profit colleges have had backing from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress.

Let’s look within

Another claim made in the film is that reforms are designed to undermine academic freedom.

I disagree that threats to academic freedom come only from outside forces. This portrayal is too generous to universities, which often make decisions for nonacademic reasons.

Mims shows that intellectual activities that disagree with conservative ideology sometimes attract the ire of conservative politicians. One troubling example from the film is the closure of a poverty research center in North Carolina.

But as public policy expert from University of California, Berkeley David Kirp demonstrates in his book, “Shakespeare, Einstein, and the Bottom Line,” financial interests often trump academics at America’s universities. Although painful for those involved, many program closures are motivated by cost and efficiency concerns rather than political ideology.

A large number of faculty are now hired on a part-time or contingent basis.
Roger W, CC BY-SA

“Starving the Beast” also identifies anti-tenure policies as a major threat to academic freedom. Sure enough, recent developments, such as policies in Wisconsin and Texas, weaken tenure and academic freedom. These are threats that come from outside of higher education. And, indeed, these policies concern me.

But more than one-half of all faculty are now “contingent” – that is, they teach on a semester-to-semester basis. This “new faculty majority” has little protection for academic freedom. In my assessment, widespread use of contingent faculty by colleges and universes poses the greatest threat to the academic profession.

Who is responsible?

Mims suggests that most people don’t know what is happening to public universities. That may be true. But in my assessment, social values might also contribute to the problem.

Results of a study by University of Michigan economists Brian Jacob, Brian McCall and Kevin Stange indicate that most students make enrollment decisions based on campus amenities such as state-of-the-art gyms rather than academics. Campus officials seem to be responding to what students want: Campus amenities are among the fastest-growing categories of expenditures at public universities.

It’s also the case that many students go to college for job training rather than the intrinsic value of learning. A study by the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA shows that 70 percent of college freshman believe earning a college degree is “very important” in order “to be able to make more money.”

Often student enrollment decisions are based on campus amenities.
Penn State, CC BY-NC-ND

What is more, policies and politics destructive to public universities appear to be popular. Tax increases would be necessary to maintain high-quality education at low costs. Yet a majority of Americans believe their taxes are too high.

And several of the politicians featured in “Starving the Beast” as being harmful to universities, including Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, were elected to two terms by the people of their states.

Asking some tough questions

What does this all mean?

If, like me, you are anxious about the condition of public universities, “Starving the Beast” will only heighten your concerns. The film is a compelling account of how special interests collude to weaken public universities.

However, it tells only part of the story.

In addition to holding educational reformers and ideologues to account, it is my view as an educational researcher that we should also ask tough questions of ourselves, our neighbors and to university officials:

Are we willing to pay higher taxes for better higher education? How do we make educational choices for ourselves and for our families? Should university leaders rely on contingent professors while investing in football stadiums and gyms?

By asking these questions, I am not providing excuses for policies that Mims correctly identifies as harmful to public universities. I agree that state policies have been harmful to public universities. But what I am suggesting is that those concerned with the condition of public higher education consider the problem in a broader context with research-based evidence.

Excellent, accessible and affordable public universities are not possible without a broad public support.

The Conversation

Brendan Cantwell, Assistant Professor of Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education, Michigan State University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Matthew Lynch published in Ask An Expert, Matthew Lynch, Teachers

Ask An Expert: Helping Students Avoid the Summer Slide

When the school year ends, teachers are happy to have a break from the drudgery of the school year, but they also want students to avoid the summer slide. The summer slide occurs when children lose some of the academic skills and dispositions that they gained during the school year due to the absence and scarcity of quality learning activities during summer vacation. As the old saying goes, if you don’t use it, you lose it.

To succeed academically, children need continuous opportunities to acquire new skills and practice existing ones. This need is especially heightened during the summer months, because children do not have the privilege of being educated by certified teachers. When we think of the summer months, we think of a happy carefree time when children can have fun and unwind. However, we forget about the potential learning opportunities that we can expose our children to. In order to make sure that your students do not experience the summer slide, here are some suggestions that your can give to their parents.

• Summer Programs: Many public and private schools run summer programs for their students. Take advantage of them. They are usually for only half a day and allow flexibility for summer vacations. Contact your child’s school to find out if they offer summer programs.

• Family Reading Program: Set up a summer reading program with your child in which they choose an agreed upon number of grade level books to read per month. Make sure that you consult the child’s teacher or a librarian for advice. In order to show solidarity, the entire family should participate.

• Specialized Summer Camps: Enroll your child in a specialized summer camp. These camps are fun and incorporate hands on activities into their curriculum as well. Some of the more popular ones include computer, science and math camps.

• Pick the Teachers Brain: Conference with your child’s current or next teacher and ask them to suggest summer workbooks, science activities, essay topics, and interesting summer activities for your child. You may even be able to elicit their help in assessing your child’s performance.

• Summer Enrichment: Summer is also a good time to fill in learning gaps. If you know that your child is weak in a particular subject, you may want to set up an enrichment program. Of course, as always, consult with your child’s teacher.

• Learning While Vacationing: If you are planning on taking a vacation this summer, you can turn it into a social studies activity. Ask your child to research the destination’s history, cuisine, popular attractions, etc. Also, once you reach your vacation destination, you can schedule tours of famous landmarks and locations, which will increase their social studies knowledge.

• Summer Journaling: Ask them to write a daily journal of all of the things that they learn each day. Remember, you will need to orchestrate learning activities for your children, because you can’t trust that they will be able to do it on their own.

• Turn Daily Activities Into Learning Opportunities: If you’re at the grocery store with your kids, challenge them to add up the total cost of your purchase. Driving to grandmother’s house? Ask them to find certain colors, shapes, or patterns along the way. If you’re dealing with older kids, think of appropriate variations.

• Learning Locally: Don’t forget about the local park, museum, zoo, aquarium, etc. Your local community is full of learning opportunities that you probably have never thought of.

Preventing summer slide can seem like a daunting task, but thankfully it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to pull it off. All parents need is to be organized and have the right plan. With the list above, you can provide them with some simple strategies that they can use to prevent summer learning loss, without taking the fun out of summer. When the new school new year begins, your students will be armed with the skills that they retained from the previous year and hopefully some brand new ones. This will make your job as a teacher a whole lot better. Good luck!

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Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation, Teachers

An education for the 21st century means teaching coding in schools

**The Edvocate is pleased to publish guest posts as way to fuel important conversations surrounding P-20 education in America. The opinions contained within guest posts are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of The Edvocate or Dr. Matthew Lynch.**

Leon Sterling, Swinburne University of Technology

Bill Shorten’s recent announcement that, if elected, a Labor Government would “ensure that computer coding is taught in every primary and secondary school in Australia” has brought attention to an increasing world trend.

Estonia introduced coding in primary schools in 2012 and the UK followed suit last year. US-led initiatives such as Code.org and the “Hour of Code”, supported by organisations such as Google and Microsoft, advocate that every school student should have the opportunity to learn computer coding.

There is merit in school students learning coding. We live in a digital world where computer programs underlie everything from business, marketing, aviation, science and medicine, to name several disciplines. During a recent presentation at a radio station, one of our hosts said that IT would have been better background for his career in radio than journalism.

There is also a strong case to be made that Australia’s future prosperity will depend on delivering advanced services and digital technology, and that programming will be essential to this end. Computer programs and software are known to be a strong driver of productivity improvements in many fields.

Being introduced to coding gives students an appreciation of what can be built with technology. We are surrounded by devices controlled by computers. Understanding how they work, and imagining new devices and services, are enhanced by understanding coding.

Of course, not everyone taught coding will become a coder or have a career in information technology. Art is taught in schools with no expectation that the students should become artists.

Drag and drop

A computer program is effectively a means of automating processes. Programs systematically and reliably follow processes and can be used to exhaustively try all the possibilities.

The languages used to program computers have evolved in the 70 years we have been building computers. Interfaces and programming environments have become more natural and intuitive. Language features reflect the applications they’re used for.

What is needed to easily express a business process, scientific equation, or data analysis technique is not necessarily the same as what is needed to rapidly develop a video game.

However, throughout the evolution of programming languages, the fundamental principles have remained the same. Computer programming languages express three essential things:

  1. The order in which a sequence of instructions is performed
  2. A means of repeating a sequence of instructions a prescribed number of times
  3. And tests as to whether or not a sequence of instructions is performed.

While personal preference influences which computer language a programmer uses, there is a greater understanding of which languages work well for teaching introductory programming. For example, Scratch is popular for primary school students and is quick to learn. Alice has been used to help students quickly build computer animations. Python is increasingly used for scientific applications. Visual programming languages – where students can drag-and-drop icons rather than type code – allow for rapid development of simple programs.

At Swinburne University of Technology we run workshops to introduce school students to program NAO robots. Students use the Choregraphe environment to link robot actions from a library.

Students previously unused to programming can develop interesting robot projects in a couple of days. More sophisticated development of the robot requires students to use a more detail-oriented language, such as Python or C++. The simpler options lead to positive student experience.

The Nao robot can be programmed easily to perform a range of tasks.
Brett Davis/Flickr, CC BY-NC

Computational thinking

Writing and then executing a program gives immediate feedback as to whether you have correctly expressed instructions for the computer. Ultimately, the understanding of how to express concepts so that a computer can perform tasks accurately and efficiently is far more important than the details of the programming language.

Underlying all computer programs are algorithms, which specify in a more abstract way how a task is to be done. Algorithmic thinking – also called computational thinking – underlies computer science, and there has been a growing movement on algorithmic thinking in schools.

The new national curriculum reflects algorithmic processes, and materials are being developed to help teachers with the new curriculum. Victoria has recently developed a new subject for the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) entitled Algorithmics.
There are even materials for teaching algorithmic thinking without computers. The Computer Science Unplugged movement, led by Tim Bell and colleagues at the University of Canterbury, has developed resources that teach students concepts through movement and fun activities.

Teaching for the this century

Teaching computer coding in schools is very different from initiatives that advocate for computers in the classroom. I was not, and am still not, supportive of compulsory laptop programs in schools.

The idea is not necessarily to expose students to the technology itself, which is almost inevitable these days with the wide penetration of mobile phones. Rather, students are exposed to the skills needed to develop computer applications.

While IT skill shortages is a contentious topic, there is no doubt that not enough of the best and brightest are studying computer science at university. A significant factor is insufficient exposure to the topic at schools. Teaching coding at schools is aimed at addressing the lack.

It might be said that whatever programming language is taught will be obsolete by the time the students enter the workforce. My experience is that, if taught properly, students can rapidly transfer the principles of one language to another.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, the challenge was to understand the physical world, and harness force and energy. This understanding percolated into the school curriculum. In the 21st century, the challenge is to understand and harness data, information and knowledge. Computer programming is a necessary way of introducing students to these concepts.

Read all of our posts about EdTech and Innovation by clicking here. 

The ConversationLeon Sterling is Pro Vice Chancellor Digital Frontiers at Swinburne University of Technology.

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Read the original article.

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Matthew Lynch published in Ask An Expert, Current Ed News, EdTech & Innovation, Education Leadership, Education News,

Instead of textbooks, why not pay teachers for content?

By Brandon Wilmarth

As an English teacher in Oklahoma’s Moore Public Schools, I was recruited by some textbook providers to help them create content. It was a lot of fun, and I was happy to make some extra money doing it. But there are so many teachers in our district who are much more talented than I am. If I was developing curriculum materials that school systems across the nation were purchasing, they certainly could be doing this, too.

So when I became a technology integration specialist for the district, one of my long-term goals was to leverage the expertise of our teachers in creating high-quality digital content.

Teachers are already scouring the web for videos, articles, and other free instructional resources, then pulling these together into coherent lessons and adding their own valuable context to help students understand the material or promote deeper lines of inquiry.

My thought was, why don’t we take some of the money we’re hemorrhaging on expensive, print-based textbooks that aren’t interactive and don’t effectively capture students’ imagination—and use it to pay our teachers more money for their efforts instead?

Our vision is to create a central repository of exemplary digital content that is developed and curated by teachers, for teachers in our district. All teachers would have access to these shared instructional materials. Not all teachers would be required to contribute, but those who do could receive a stipend for their work if it’s approved as a district-vetted lesson or unit.

This would allow us to use our most powerful assets—our teachers—to their fullest potential, while also recognizing and giving value to teachers for the lesson planning and content creation they already do so well.

That’s important, because in Oklahoma, our teachers are among the lowest paid in the nation—and many leave the profession after only a few years. Honoring their talents and contributions could help stop this mass exodus of young teachers as well as veteran content experts and keep them in our schools.

To realize this vision, we needed to have a technology platform that would support teachers in creating and sharing digital lessons. We found this platform in Ogment, which helped us create curriculum by making it easier to grab digital content, including what we found on the web, and turn that into useable lessons for our classrooms.

Part of the problem is not the lack of resources, but rather the overabundance of resources. Every teacher knows how much great content exists online—but managing it all can be a nightmare. Ogment has let our teachers clip videos, articles, games, and other internet resources and put them into lessons or presentations with a simple drag-and-drop process. Then, they can embed questions within a lesson to check for students’ understanding or prompt further discussion—and they can easily share their lessons with other teachers.

Our teachers have used the service to “flip” their classrooms and even personalize instruction. For instance, Tiffany Truesdell, a math teacher at Westmoore High School, says she has used Ogment to make customized lessons for her students.

“I can assign a lesson that presents all the material, and as students go through the lesson, I can have questions that check for their understanding just as if I were presenting the material in class. I can pull videos from any website to enhance the lesson, and if I only want a small section of the video, Ogment lets me assign just that portion of the video in my lesson,” she says.

“Ogment also allows me to differentiate a lesson. For example, if I have a student on an IEP who needs multiple choice, but I want the other students to have a free response question, I can create the lesson once but with differentiated questions. When the questions come up, it will give the IEP student the multiple choice question instead.”

Mrs. Truesdell’s example shows that with the right technology, our district can build a shared repository of lessons that is truly usable. More importantly, a system like this allows our teachers to apply their talents and reignite their passion for creating great content.

We are working toward a model in which we pay teachers extra for the content they create and share through this tool. We’re not there yet; we’re still trying to free up the funding to be able to do this.

But when we come up with the funding to realize our vision, we’ll be able to pay our teachers extra for creating and sharing top-notch lessons—rewarding teachers for their work and restoring professionalism to the field.

Brandon Wilmarth is a technology integration specialist for Moore Public Schools in Oklahoma.

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Matthew Lynch published in Policy & Reform

Report: K-12 education news coverage on the rise

Mainstream media drives conversations so analyzing what is being covered in the news gives a general indication of public perception on issues.

A new report from leading education reform policy strategist Andrew R. Campanella titled “Leading the News – 25 Years of Education Coverage” reveals how news media has presented K-12 education stories over the past quarter century. So what does education news coverage look like?

In short, coverage of K-12 education in the news media is on the rise — up 7.7 percent in 2014 over the average of the 25-year span.

Not surprisingly, local news outlets provide the most education news coverage. In fact, local news outlets commit 6.82 percent of their air time to cover K-12 education or schools. That’s nearly three times higher than the national news coverage average at just 2.3 percent. What’s more is that local education news coverage appears to be on the rise.

From 2010 to 2014, the top education news story topic (by far) was sports, garnering 13.6 percent. At a distant second was special events (5.1 percent), followed by education funding (5 percent) and academic subjects (4.65 percent).

As far as groups of people, students get the most mentions at 62 percent, followed by administrators (42.7 percent), teachers (28.3 percent) and parents (23.5 percent).

Coverage of educational policy is on the decline though — down 36 percent in 2014 over the 25-year average. Within the education policy category, funding and school choice were the most-covered topics. These two topics garnered 2.5 times MORE coverage than all other educational policy reporting combined (10 other specific issues).

Looking ahead, the report forecasts that school choice, school safety and state education standards will continue to rise in news coverage. Teacher issues, funding, federal programs and class sizes will continue to decline.

This is just a snapshot of all the report entails. You can read the rest of it by clicking here. 

I can’t say I’m very surprised that local outlets provide K-12 education the most coverage, but I was surprised to see that funding and federal programs are seeing less air time. I’d be interested to see an update of this report in another 5 years to find out if the trends in K-12 educational coverage continue on the same path.

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Matthew Lynch published in Parental Involvement, Policy & Reform

Here’s how homeschooling is changing in America

Kyle Greenwalt, Michigan State University

As children head back to school, an increasing number of their homeschooled peers will be starting their academic year as well. Homeschooling in the United States is growing at a strong pace.

Recent statistics indicate that 1.5 million children were homeschooled in the United States in 2007. This is up significantly from 1.1 million children in 2003 and 850,000 children in 1999.

The homeschooling movement first emerged in earnest during the 1980s. Back then it was largely led by evangelical Christians. But as the movement has grown, it has also changed. Today’s homeschooling families may increasingly welcome cooperation with their local public school districts.
In my own research, I have seen how diverse homeschoolers now are. This diversity challenges any simplistic understanding of what homeschooling is and what impact it will have on the public school system.

So how do we understand this evolution in American education?

Early trends

In fact, homeschooling was common up until the late 19th century. Most children received a substantial part of their education within the home. In the late 19th century, states started passing compulsory attendance laws. These laws compelled all children to attend public schools or a private alternative. In this way, education outside the home became the norm for children.

It was in the 1970s that American educator John Holt emerged as a proponent of homeschooling. He challenged the notion that the formal school system provided the best place for children to learn. Slowly, small groups of parents began to remove their children from the public schools.

Homeschooling graduation in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Jim, the Photographer, CC BY

By the 1980s, homeschooling families had emerged as an organized public movement. During that decade, more than 20 states legalized homeschooling. For the most part, evangelical Christians led these battles. Organizations such as the Home School Legal Defense Association, founded in 1983, provided the necessary legal and financial backing for these families.

At the time, homeschooling was seen to be in conflict with secular school systems. Religious parents came to define the public face of the homeschooling.

Reasons for homeschooling

Today, homeschooling is becoming part of the mainstream. It is legal in all 50 states. In addition, a growing number of states are making attempts to engage the homeschooled population for at least part of the day.

For example, 28 states do not prevent homeschooled students from participating in public school interscholastic sports. At least 15 more states are considering “Tim Tebow Laws” – named after the homeschooled athlete – that would allow homeschoolers access to school sports.

The overall homeschool movement is also much more diverse. For example, sociologists Philip Q. Yang and Nihan Kayaardi argue that the homeschool population does not significantly differ from the general U.S. population. Put another way, it is not really possible to assume anything about the religious beliefs, political affiliations or financial status of homeschooling families anymore.

Data from the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) provide further corroboration. In 2008, the NCES found that only 36 percent of the homeschooling families in their survey chose “the desire for religious or moral instruction” as their primary reason for their decision to homeschool. At the same time, other reasons, such as a concern about the school environment, were just as important to many homeschool families.

A new generation of homeschooled children

So, what are the reasons behind this expansion of the homeschool movement?

My research shows that this has been fueled, at least in part, by changes in the public school system. For example, changes in technology have brought about the rise of online charter schools, which utilize remote online instruction to serve their students.

Much has changed for the new generation of homeschoolers. Elf Sternberg, CC BY-NC

This means that more students are educated in their home at public expense. California, Ohio and Pennsylvania have led the way in this regard. In 2006, it was estimated that 11 percent of Pennsylvania’s charter schools had online instruction. What is noteworthy is that 60 percent of the students in these schools had previously been homeschooled.

In addition, homeschoolers in states such as Michigan have access to public school interscholastic sports. That’s not all. They can, in addition, opt to take certain public school offerings.

For example, homeschoolers can choose to attend school for part of the day, and take Advanced Placement courses in any range of subjects. Such courses are popular with many families because they allow students to earn college credit while still in high school.

Changing face of homeschoolers

Discussions about whether homeschooling is good for children can be emotionally charged. Some scholars are critical about the increasing number of homeschoolers, while some others view homeschooling in a different light.

Is homeschooling better? A child in Des Moines, Iowa. IowaPolitics.com, CC BY-SA

They believe that homeschooling families are more responsive to a child’s individual needs and interests. They may be better at taking advantage of learning experiences that naturally arise in home and community life.

Indeed, in my own work as a teacher educator, I have come across parents who have chosen to homeschool their children for reasons that are not entirely religious. These include two public school teachers with whom I work. Reasons for parents could range from concern over food allergies, special needs, racism or just that their child might be interested in a career in athletics or the arts.

Given all these changes, it may be time for public educators and policymakers – both so desperate to increase parental participation – to reassess who and what represents the homeschooling movement of today.

The Conversation

Kyle Greenwalt, Associate Professor, Michigan State University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Matthew Lynch published in Education Leadership, First Year Teachers, Teachers

How civic intelligence can teach what it means to be a citizen

Douglas Schuler, Evergreen State College

This political season, citizens will be determining who will represent them in the government. This, of course, includes deciding who will be the next president, but also who will serve in thousands of less prominent positions.

But is voting the only job of a citizen? And if there are others, what are they? Who decides who will do the other jobs – and how they should be done?

The concept of “civic intelligence” tries to address such questions.

I’ve been researching and teaching the concept of “civic intelligence” for over 15 years. Civic intelligence can help us understand how decisions in democratic societies are made now and, more importantly, how they could be made in the future.

For example, my students and I used civic intelligence as the focus for comparing colleges and universities. We wanted to see how well schools helped educate their students for civic engagement and social innovation and how well the schools themselves supported this work within the broader community.

My students also practiced civic intelligence, as the best way of learning it is through “real world” projects such as developing a community garden at a high school for incarcerated youth.

So what is civic intelligence? And why does it matter?

Understanding civic intelligence

Civic intelligence describes what happens when people work together to address problems efficiently and equitably. It’s a wide-ranging concept that shows how positive change happens. It can be applied anywhere – from the local to the global – and could take many forms.

For example, civic intelligence was seen in practice when representatives of the world’s governments created and unanimously approved a global action plan last year in Paris. While climate change remains an immense threat, this global cooperation involving years of dedicated debate and discussion produced a common framework for action for worldwide reduction of greenhouse gases.

Civic intelligence describes when people work together to address problems. Takver, CC BY-SA

Another example is that of mayors around the world establishing networks such as the Global Parliament of Mayors to bring elected officials together on a regular basis to discuss issues facing cities, such as housing, transportation and air quality. One of these networks, the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, was launched when representatives of the world’s 40 largest cities wanted to collaborate to address climate change.

Similarly, millions of researchers, teachers, artists, other individuals and NGOs worldwide are working to improve their cities and communities. These efforts are amazingly diverse.

In one such case, groups of church members and others from the community in Olympia, Washington, worked for several years with homeless people and families to develop affordable housing solutions. And in Brooklyn, a group of young people started an experimental School of the Future to develop their ideas on what schools could or should be.

What’s the history?

The term “civic intelligence” was first used in English in 1898 by an American clergyman Josiah Strong in his book “The Twentieth Century City” when he wrote of a “dawning social self-consciousness.”

Untold numbers of people have been thinking and practicing civic intelligence without using the term. A brief look at some notable efforts reveals some historic approaches to its broader vision. Let’s take a few:

Laurie Chipps, CC BY-ND
  • John Dewey, the prominent social scientist, educator and public intellectual, was absorbed for much of his long professional life with understanding how people pool their knowledge to address the issues facing them.
  • The American activist and reformer Jane Addams, who in 1889 cofounded the Hull House in Chicago, which housed recent immigrants from Europe, pioneered scores of civically intelligent efforts. These included free lectures on current events, Chicago’s first public playground and a wide range of cultural, political and community research activities.

Civic intelligence today

There are more contemporary approaches as well. These include:

  • Sociologist Xavier de Souza Briggs’ research on how people from around the world have integrated the efforts of civil society, grassroots organizations and government to create sustainable communities.
  • With a slightly different lens, researcher Jason Corburn has examined how “ordinary” people in economically underprivileged neighborhoods have used “Street Science” to understand and reduce disease and environmental degradation in their communities.
  • Elinor Ostrom, recently awarded the Nobel Prize in economics, has studied how groups of people from various times and places managed resources such as fishing grounds, woodlots and pastures by working together collectively to preserve the livelihoods’ sources for future generations.

Making use of civic intelligence

Civic intelligence is generally an attribute of groups. It’s a collective capability to think and work together.

Advocates and practitioners of civic intelligence (as well as many others) note that the risks of the 21st century, which include climate change, environmental destruction and overpopulation, are quantitatively and qualitatively unlike the risks of prior times. They hypothesize that these risks are unlikely to be addressed satisfactorily by government and other leaders without substantial citizen engagement.

Civic intelligence reminds us that citizens assume responsibility. Gonzale, CC BY-NC

They argue that with or without formal invitations, the citizen must assume more responsibility for the state of the world, especially since in some cases the leaders themselves are part of the problem.

“Ordinary” people could bring many civic skills to the public sphere, such as innovation, compassion and heroism that are indispensable to the decision-making processes.

That is what brought about changes such as human rights, overturning slavery and the environmental movement. These were initiated not by businesses or governments, but by ordinary people.

Twenty-first century civics

The civics classes that are required in the public schools mostly focus on conventional political processes. They might teach about governance in a more conventional way, such as how many senators there are (100) or how long their terms are (six years). But self-governance needs more than that.

At a basic level, “governance” happens when neighborhood groups, nonprofit organizations or a few friends come together to help address a shared concern.

Their work can take many forms, including writing, developing websites, organizing events or demonstrations, petitioning, starting organizations and, even, performing tasks that are usually thought of as “jobs for the government.”

And sometimes “governance” could even mean breaking some rules, possibly leading to far-reaching reforms. For example, without civil disobedience, the U.S. might still be a British colony. And African-Americans might still be forced to ride in the back of the bus.

As a discipline, civic intelligence provides a broad focus that incorporates ideas and findings from many fields of study. It involves people from all walks of life, different cultures and circumstances.

A focus on civic intelligence could lead directly to social engagement. I believe understanding civic intelligence could help address the challenges we must face today and tomorrow.

The Conversation

Douglas Schuler, Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies, Evergreen State College

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Matthew Lynch published in Diversity

4 ways to get long-term English learners back on track

A guest post by Douglas Chrystall 

Districts around the country are struggling to teach English language learners (ELLs). An especially challenging subset of ELLs are long-term English learners (LTELs). According to ASCD, “a Long-Term English Learner is a student who has been enrolled in U.S. schools for more than six years, is no longer progressing towards English proficiency, and is struggling academically.” These students are often orally bilingual but don’t have the ability to read or write English for academic purposes. In school they try to fly under the radar, faking understanding whenever they can. This makes them the least engaged students in class—and because they perform below grade level in reading and writing, they struggle in all subjects.

In turn, their lack of academic English hurts their overall performance at school. LTELs are most at risk of dropping out. Students who drop out of school early are most likely to get into trouble with the law and find themselves in juvenile detention when they are younger than 18—and in prison when adults. Unless we help these students learn academic English, they are stuck in a vicious cycle that becomes more and more difficult to escape.

As an example of how limiting it is to not speak English in America, a 2005 census report found that 60% of people who don’t speak, understand, and write English at a fourth-grade level will not find full-time employment. And those who do find full-time work will earn, on average, half as much as their English-speaking counterparts.

As any doctor will tell you, prevention is better than cure. A dollar spent on a student today is $20 saved in ten years’ time. While learning English won’t solve all of the challenges facing today’s LTELs, it will certainly help them on their way. Here are a handful ways that educators can help these students improve their chances of learning English, staying in school, and eventually finding good jobs.

Start early. Students who gain a grasp of academic English in elementary school have a much better chance at succeeding in the classroom. Those who start later in life are much more likely to become classified as LTELs.

 Keep LTELs (and other ELL students) in mainstream classes. Rather than isolating these students—who, as I mentioned before, already have a tendency to be quiet and withdrawn—keep them in classes with their wider peer group in two ways.

First, teachers should make a point of engaging these students in class so they get as much experience as possible speaking academic English. Second, schools should provide them supports they can use outside of class time to accelerate their English learning. Lessons that use video and sound can help “jumpstart” a student who might be stuck at a certain level.

 Use students’ knowledge of their native languages to strengthen their English. Bilingual students can help teach their native language to others. For example, a teacher could explain a concept in English and then ask a bilingual student to teach the same concept to the class in his or her native language. Not only does the bilingual student get the experience of translating, but the other students get to hear from a native speaker.

The language-teaching platform Lingo Jingo also uses this “bilingual” approach to help LTELs practice their English. They can learn new topics in their native language and then learn the same content in English. This method improves students’ understanding of new concepts as well as the academic language they’ll need to continue through high school and beyond.

 Track performance and act on the information collected. For students who are at risk of “falling through the cracks,” a little bit of data can go a long way. For example, knowing which learning activities students have accessed; how much time they spent on an activity; how many times they repeated each activity; and what key words, phrases, or concepts students have mastered can help teachers see exactly where students are succeeding and where they might need more help.

___________

Douglas Chrystall is the co-founder of Lingo Jingo, an award-winning language-teaching platform designed for language educators. Under his leadership, the company recently received a Small Business Innovation Research grant from the Institute of Education Sciences and the U.S. Department of Education. Douglas has worked in the software industry for more than 20 years, and is the author of several technology patents in use today. He is extremely passionate about how IT can improve educational outcomes, and works closely with local schools on the best use of technology.

 

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