Superintendent Yolanda Valdez takes messaging seriously. Not emoji-filled texts or IMs, but messages that convey a goal for 4,000-plus students at Cutler-Orosi Joint USD in rural California: That they will attend college. Superintendent Yolanda Valdez takes messaging seriously. Not emoji-filled texts or IMs, but messages that convey a goal for 4,000-plus students at Cutler-Orosi Joint […]
Marc Prensky, an authority on the connection between learning and technology, coined the phrase "digital native" in 2001. In his new book, Education To Better Their World: Unleashing the Power of 21st-Century Kids (2016, Teachers College Press), Prensky says our current education system is wrong for the future—not because we haven't added technology and so-called […]
It's no secret teachers are jumping ship in record numbers, and the dwindling numbers of incoming grads don't even come close to patching the gap as the demand for teachers rises. The Learning Policy Institute reported in 2016 that enrollment in teaching programs is down 35 percent nationwide (and has been for years), and the […]
What are the benefits of an effective family engagement program? Decades of research shows that family engagement is the number one driver of student success. Engaged families result in lower truancy rates, higher test scores, and higher graduation rates. Having positive relationships with families reduces teacher stress and increases their sense of community and belonging. […]
In many school districts today, hiring practices for administrative leaders often consist of "replacement filling" waiting for a position to open up before searching for candidates, according to a 2014 report on K12 education titled "Best Practices in Succession Planning" created by Hanover Research, a market research and survey analysis company based in Washington, D.C. […]
Cloud usage is on the rise. In 2014, schools delivered only 42 percent of their IT solutions fully or partially via cloud. In just two years, that number jumped to 67 percent and in three years, K-12 IT pros expect that number to reach 74 percent, according to CDW-G's K-12 Cloud Possibilities infographic. Those numbers […]
A new series of toolkits designed to help administrators meet next-generation high school standards has been released by the Alliance for Excellent Education, a national education policy and advocacy organization for underserved secondary school students. The toolkits (available for free download as PowerPoint documents) de-mystify the Every Student Succeeds Act, explaining many of the law's […]
Craig Jones discovered the difficulty of providing personalized learning to a large class when he taught science at a Los Angeles USD middle school. With 10 lab stations set up across the classroom—each with its own objectives—monitoring each students' learning was virtually impossible. Jones sought to solve the problem. After leaving the district, he helped […]
Alaska recently graduated its first class of Russian dual-language students who began the program in kindergarten. That's just one example of the growing diversity of language-immersion programs in U.S. schools. While Spanish remains a constant, there is an increased demand nationally for dual-language programs in Portuguese, German, French and Mandarin, says Pete Swanson, president of […]
