Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Yes, one bullied student can transform a school out of simple consistent act of kindness

     In what I would call one of the most inspiring stories about a bullied student using one simple consistent act of kindness on a daily basis shows what one person can do to change the culture of their school. You will be totally inspired by this young man who went from invisible and ignored to a person that transformed his entire school in a way that rippled across the school community. Josh is a student who had no expectations of his act but to those who have come in contact with him, they feel like also can make a difference. This short video will blow you away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-cl=84359240&x-yt-ts=1421782839&v=PIHtuKc3Gjg#t=19
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10 Educators On Twitter You Should Follow (But Probably Don’t)

One of the best things about Twitter is the collegiality of Twitter. Learning from your colleagues is awesome at school meetings and you can make a laboratory of which works and which does not. When you add that to world class educators who make themselves and best practices to educators, great teaching and great learning for our students occur. I did an inventory (I did not know I should have one) and found out I follow two. I quickly added the other eight. The list is from about 19 months ago so it could be dated but here are their profiles and why should give them a go. Let me know if youdo.
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If you’re already a teacher on Twitter, you know how useful it can be to connect with other educators and get the latest news in education.
If you’re not on Twitter you may think it’s just celebrities navel gazing while everyone else tweets pictures of their latest meal. Yes, there can be some of that, but there are also plenty of innovative teachers using Twitter to engage with like-minded people on a variety of education subjects.
twitter-in-the-classroomWhether you’re a Twitter novice or pro, here are some educators on Twitter that may be worth following.
10 Educators On Twitter You Should Follow (But Probably Don’t)
Middle school teacher Ron Clark, winner of Disney’s American Teacher Awards 2000 Outstanding Teacher of the Year, is also an author, speaker and co-founder of the Ron Clark Academy. Located in Atlanta, the RCA is dedicated to teaching in innovative, creative and inspiring ways. Clark’s Twitter feed offers frequent tweets, including lots of photos featuring daily and special events at the school. Followers can look forward to at least one tweet a day, and usually more, of Clark’s inspiring insight and updates into his dynamic and busy life.
Recognized as one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People, Kopp is CEO and co-founder of Teach For All and founder and chair of the board for Teach For America, both of which are dedicated to providing excellent education for children in low-income communities and in impoverished areas throughout the world. Via her Twitter feed, Kopp offers encouraging words, travel and personal updates, photos, and links to articles, films and other things of interest.
Prolific Twitter user Jessica Johnson is an elementary school principal in rural Wisconsin and co-moderator of the #educoach Wednesday night chat on Twitter. As a matter of fact, she lists “Twitter Evangelist” on her Twitter bio. As of last count, she has almost 7,400 followers and she’s closing in on 23,000 tweets. Johnson’s Twitter feed is a great place to learn more about #educoach and other education initiatives and groups on Twitter. Along with practical advice and useful links, Johnson offers a nice dose of humor to her tweets and engages in lively discussions with her followers.
Passionate educator and busy Twitter user Crista Anderson is a K-12 instructional coach in Montana. At almost 20,000 tweets and 4,500 followers, Anderson has a lot to say and a lot of people listening. She offers links to articles, conference information and updates, interesting studies, research, photos, reminders, advice, and valuable resources. Anderson is engaging and good at answering follower questions.
Rhode-Island based educator Nicole Bucka was formerly an English, special ed, and ELL teacher in Southern California and is currently RTI support for secondary schools in Rhode Island. She is an autism advocate and her tweets include links and resources related to autism and special ed. She also discusses student discipline, student success, and year round schooling as it impacts student learning.
Texas instructional technology guru, writer, speaker, and Google Certified Teacher Amy Mayer is passionate about edtech and a prolific Twitter user. Followers of Mayer’s are treated to a mixed bag of tweets which have included links to job openings, edtech advice, cool videos, useful links and more. Mayer seems determined to show how technology and creativity can go hand in hand where education is concerned.
Fourth-grade teacher and edtech enthusiast Scott Newcomb seems to constantly scan the net for great links and useful information on topics ranging from mobile learning technology to project-based learning, which he then tweets to his many followers. Followers will find tons of leads on great iPad education apps and savvy tips for teachers who want to engage in mobile learning in their own classrooms.
Josh Stumpenhorst is a sxith-grade language arts and social science teacher at Lincoln Junior High School in Illinois and the state’s 2012 teacher of the year. His Twitter feed offers inspiration, humor, and practical teaching tips. He is an avid Twitter user who feels Twitter has profoundly affected his life, evidenced by his over 40,000 tweets. Followers can expect at least a tweet an hour.
Fifth-grade teacher and creator of the Global Read Aloud Pernille Ripp writes that she has received no awards or accolades except for “the lightbulbs that go off in my students’ heads every day.” This is an educator who is in the trenches, every day, in her classroom in Madison, Wis., and tweets about that and other education subject on her busy Twitter feed as she engages with her followers.
Vicki Davis is a busy education voice on social media. Along with her bustling Twitter feed, which has more than 54,000 followers, she is a full-time teacher and IT director at her school, and she is a writer of both a book and a blog. She tweets on personal development, teaching, leadership and more while keeping followers informed about her speaking engagements and newest podcasts.
If you’re looking for even more K-12 or higher-ed educators to follow on Twitter, want to join in on an education chat, or just want to see what people are saying about education, you can do searches of hashtags such as #edchat, #edtech, #elemchat, #education, #teaching and more.
Kristin Marino writes about education and social media. She has an English degree from the University of Nevada, Reno; image attribution flickr user hankerstein

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Tuesday, January 20, 2015

What If Every Teacher Tweeted


    


     Think of the possibilities. Talking to other teachers about best practices is a great thing within your building. When you add the world wide web, ideas that would never happen because you would never meet the other educator would now be the norm. Without a doubt, since I started tweeting in December as a member of the Vanguard team in my school district which promotes technology and best practices using this medium within the schools, I have had many great ideas including reading the story below. If you are not tweeting, you should at least with your colleagues. It should take your teaching to a whole new level.

What If Every Teacher Tweeted

What If Every Teacher Tweeted? Why Teachers Should Tweet
by Terry Heick
What if every teacher tweeted?
Is there some kind of sequence of events we might expect? A teacher signs up for twitter after agonizing over the details (username, avatar, bio, etc.), follows a few dozen people, then sits slack-jawed and confused as that non-stop digital stream begins.
We have to assume that somehow this trickles down to the learning experiences of the students–their writing, their skills, and the wandering of their thoughts–yes? No reason to tweet just to be all avant-garde about it all. It depends on how it’s used–twitter, that is.
Like any tool, twitter is designed for a task. The results of that task depends on the knowledge and skill of its user. There is nothing other-wordly about twitter, if we’re being honest. It has its talents (a few of which we looked at in why twitter works in education), but it is, in shorty, some thing some one made.
And as teachers, we can use it, or leave it alone.
Twitter’s Magic Mix

In spite of its popularity (500 million tweets per day from 271 million active users–almost 80% outside of the United States), most teachers don’t tweet. I mean, I don’t have data in front of me that says that, but judging from the schools that I visit, I’d put the number of teachers that actively use twitter–well, a very small number.
In lieu of the pleadings from colleagues to “connect,” most teachers don’t use twitter, but are quite satisfied with facebook, thank you very much. And certainly facebook connects. As does instagram, tumblr, wikis, blogging, Google+, linkedin, pinterest, YouTube, et. al. It’s an exhausting list, but there is something about twitter that is both disarming and imminently useful at the same time.
A small handful of buttons, a simple interface that rarely changes, and a general humility about itself. It’s not seeking to replace the internet (as is Zuckerberg’s project). It’s just twitter–a just right mix of engagement, accessibility, and utility. There’s something addicting about that stream of tweets that fall down your timeline as the ideas and messages and energy materialize, and then fall away. You can lurk, you can troll, you can be snarky, or you can be informative.
So what if every teacher tweeted? What might happen? What could we assume? If every teacher tweeted, we could assume that…
…They found a voice
Ideally, we’d see that every teacher had found their voice. Just like every teacher must somehow translate their knowledge and personality into some kind of “voice” and personality in the classroom as a learning leader, it’s not much different on twitter. What can I say, as a teacher, on twitter that other people will find compelling? Useful?
This is something I actually struggle with. I’m far more comfortable writing books, essays, and blog posts that I am tweets–which is why I don’t tweet often. When I do find the “courage to tweet,” it happens by realizing that I’m not “great” on twitter, and tweeting anyway.
They connected
If every teacher tweets, we can someone that they connected to someone for some reason without getting stuck in a loop of “lurking and liking.”
Unless they are sending messages to absolutely no one with zero audience awareness, social skills, or will to understand this digital contraption, a teacher that tweets naturally connects–some more, some less, but connecting is a natural consequence of communication. It’ll happen, and who knows where those connections can lead?
They started a global PLN
Add that one to the resume. You want to teach and think differently? Connect with teachers from all over the world as they seek to understand their craft, and socialize that process through twitter.
Felt peer pressure
If every teacher tweeted, somewhere along the line they’d feel peer pressure. To belong. To be accepted. To be popular. To fit in. To be retweeted, favorited, and followed. High school all over again. Even the ones that act above it care, or they wouldn’t be on twitter to begin with.
Were heard
If they tweeted, they’d be heard. Maybe by only a handful of people–especially at first. But if you’re among the schools on this “leader in me” kick, there are few better ways to jump-start leadership than by finding a niche, connecting with others, and doing good work.
And being heard can help quiet the nerves–and the urge to be overly-defensive and argue and cross your arms over your chest with your chin in the air. If every teacher connected, felt heard, and had a place they felt they “fit in,” maybe so many wouldn’t quit.
Stay calm and tweet.
Considered other ideas
Unless they only follow people that think exactly like they do, and then know every single thing that similarly-thinking person knows, at one time or another, every teacher that tweets will be forced to consider ideas other than their own–and likely in privacy, where they may not feel compelled to be argumentative and close-minded about it all. And that can be powerful unless they’re so thick-headed that not even tweets can get in.
There were a lot of bad tweets
And if every teacher tweeted, we can assume there were a lot of bad tweets. Just being honest. Think about it. *shudder*
They found a niche
Every teacher that tweets will hopefully do some for a reasons above and beyond “getting followers.” While it’s true that followers mean reach, they don’t mean impact. There are an awful lot of twitter users with an awful lot of followers that say the same thing everyone else says, which gets them an awful lot more followers, but in pursuit of what? The same making more same. Blahblahblahblahblahblah.
Ask yourself instead, “What matters to me, and how can I use twitter to impact it?”
The formula for success for teachers on twitter might be simple, then. Find a niche, find a voice, and care a lot about it. That might be a good idea for a post of its own.
adpated image attribution flickr nwabr; Why Teachers Should Tweet
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Sunday, January 18, 2015

Special Education students connect aerospace and real life

     One of the great things about Twitter is there are so many great ideas out there that you pick up information you can use and be inspired by that you would never think of yourself. Philip Capobianco (@CapoOttawa) from I presume Ottawa, Canada tweeted this story out about a teacher doing an awesome technology program with his special eductionstudents. You will be impressed with his results. Think Stand and Deliver meets Top Gun only with his lucky students.

 

O'side students fly model planes

By 6 a.m.
 
Mark Nicholson, special needs teacher at Jefferson Middle School in Oceanside, retrieved a motorized glider that serves as the cornerstone to a program where he teaches students about aerospace principles.
Mark Nicholson, special needs teacher at Jefferson Middle School in Oceanside, retrieved a motorized glider that serves as the cornerstone to a program where he teaches students about aerospace principles. — Charlie Neuman
 
At Oceanside’s Jefferson Middle School, special-needs teacher and aviation buff Mark Nicholson is showing his students the ropes on how to fly a battery-powered glider — and that’s not all.
Nicholson is using Civil Air Patrol lessons that teach everything from aerodynamics and windsock construction to airplane anatomy and algebra concepts on radius and distance. He connects the theories taught in books and on computers to a real life application.
photo

Aerospace ed. for special needs kids

View Gallery
He hopes the program catches on with other teachers at the school, and that students might even get the chance to fly in a real plane if he garners enough support.
Some of Nicholson’s students have already said they want to become pilots one day.
“That’s what I want to be,” said seventh grader James Smith. “It’s better than playing a video game.” U.S. Air Force Maj. Thomas Scott, director of the Civil Air Patrol’s aerospace education California wing, said that Nicholson’s approach to teaching is unique in that he’s trying to incorporate the Patrol’s lesson plans at a school. The group’s approach is more typically found in after-school programs or clubs, Scott said.
“His way of integrating this into a special-needs program is something we’ve not seen before,” Scott said.
The Civil Air Patrol is a volunteer civilian auxiliary of the Air Force, and is tasked with search and rescue operations, aerospace education for youth, and cadet programs for teenagers.
The glider, instructional materials and software to simulate flying are part of a curriculum package provided by the Civil Aviation Patrol that the middle school purchased with a $720 grant from the Oceanside Chamber of Commerce.
The package includes other educational elements as well, including lessons on rocketry and robotics, for instance. On the drawing board are plans to build and fire off rockets, perhaps from a field behind the middle school.
While the glider program for his special needs students began just a few months ago, Nicholson plans to roll out a larger aerospace education program that would include all 650 students in Jefferson’s 6-8 grades.
Aviation is more than a pastime for Nicholson, who said he has been flying single-engine planes for nearly 30 years and expects to earn his wings to become a flight instructor in a few months.
Jefferson Principal Marie Higareda de Ochoa said the aerospace education program addresses “common core standards” by connecting concepts taught in her school’s math department with flying the glider.
“The proverbial question asked by eighth graders is, ‘Why do I have to learn algebra if it’s never used?’ Well, they learn it and have a culminating activity with the model airplane.’”
At the moment, the program has been structured around only Nicholson’s 19 special needs students.
Every Monday, before 8 a.m., seventh graders like James Smith and Alvaro Sabino look forward to the lessons.
First, they huddle around a computer to test fly a simulated glider plane. It’s all guided with software and a joy stick, just like a video game. The joy stick moves the rudder and ailerons to give the glider movement to the left or right, or a rise or fall in elevation.
 
To read the rest, click below. http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/jan/15/oceanside-teacher-educates-students-on-flying/2/?#article-copy
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Saturday, January 17, 2015

Too Much Sitting? Five Movement Strategies That Get Students Thinking



Too Much Sitting? Five Movement Strategies That Get Kids Thinking
by Kenny McKee
flickeringbrad-effective-teacherEach day more research confirms the link between movement and learning. Brain researcher David Sousa claims that physical activity increases the amount of oxygen in our blood, and this oxygen is related to enhanced learning and memory. A recent Washington Post article suggests that many student behaviors we associate with ADHD may stem from an overall lack of physical movement  – both in and out of school. In addition, a phenomenally popular blog post by Alexis Wiggins recently touched upon how much sitting students actually do every day, and how all that sitting affects energy levels and learning.
However, many secondary teachers struggle to integrate movement into the classroom. I know that as a former English teacher, movement found its way into many of my “special” lessons, but it was often a missing ingredient of daily instruction. For example, when students created commercials, searched for books in the library, or carried out debates, movement was inevitable. However, when the main focus of a lesson was reading and writing (as many are in the English classroom), movement was minimal.
I’ve included some strategies that teachers of any content area can use to integrate movement into lessons.  When you have a lesson that looks “sedentary,” integrating one of these strategies will surely increase students’ learning and engagement.
1. Gallery Walks/Chalk Talks
In some lessons, students may need to analyze multiple texts. Why not post those texts on the walls, and have students rotate through them in small groups? I have used this strategy with students analyzing primary and secondary documents for DBQ’s (document-based questions) in history classes. One colleague has students analyze magazine ads for rhetorical techniques in her English class.
Gallery walks can also feature student-created texts, even digital ones. A colleague who teaches earth science once had student groups create informational Animoto videos on different geographic formations. She then had students participate in a digital gallery walk where they watched the student-created videos on laptops, and took notes on each geographic formation.
Chalk Talks are gallery walks where students are asked to respond to texts. For example, quotes could be posted, and student could post their reactions to them. In a math class, students could solve a problem on chart paper, and explain their process. Other students could then use Post-Its to write comments or critiques of their solution and process.
2. White Board Meetings
White Board Meetings are a strategy I have seen two science teachers use often.  Essentially, students will investigate a situation (often using a data set). Students will then make sense of the problem in a group. They will display their findings on a mini-whiteboard. Usually, students are required to show information in graphs, pictures, mathematics, and writing.  Once students post their information on whiteboards, they present their findings.  Students can then receive feedback and answer questions about their information.
3. North Pole-South Pole/Continuum
This strategy is great for formative assessment or assessing background knowledge. Essentially, one side of the room represents one idea, and the other side of the room represents an opposing idea.
For example, I used the strategy while teaching in a statistics class recently. My “North Pole” was “I feel extremely confident in how well I can comprehend and remember information in the statistics textbook.” My “South Pole” was “I feel NO confidence in how well I can comprehend and remember information in the statistics textbook.” Students were asked to align themselves with how they felt. If they had a more moderate response, they positioned themselves more closely to the center of the room, showing a continuum of student confidence. Their responses affected how I presented an array of note-taking strategies and which students I worked with more closely during the lesson.
4. Musical Mingle
This strategy works along the same lines as Musical Chairs, but you simply ask students to stand. I often develop a series of questions that I want to ask students before the lesson begins (to assess background knowledge) or after the lesson (to assess learning). I ask all of the students to stand. When I play the music, they will meander around. When the music stops, I announce a question and they will discuss responses with a person close to them. Once students have had the opportunity to talk, we then repeat the process.
One caveat to this strategy is limiting your questions. Generally, any more than three or four questions results in diminished focus.  Once the activity is completed, students to share some of their discussion points with the whole class. Most students feel confident sharing in the whole class because they have had an opportunity to clarify their thinking with a partner earlier.
5.  Stations
Most educators view stations as a staple of the elementary school classroom, but they are also extremely effective in middle and high schools. Stations can be utilized for differentiation. For example, based upon students’ current writing trends, a teacher could place students at station based upon areas they need to practice. Activities can be on paper, or they can be embedded digitally using QR Codes. Other stations may be rotational, such as short writing prompts, differing math problems, selected poems to analyze, or different activities for new vocabulary or concepts.
Kenneth McKee is a high school literacy coach for Buncombe County Schools in Asheville, NC. His interests include teacher leadership, disciplinary literacies, and partnership approaches to instructional coaching. He is a 2014 ASCD Emerging Leader. Connect with him on his blog (kennycmckee.com) or on Twitter (@kennycmckee); image attribution flickr user flickeringbrad; Too Much Sitting? 5 Movement Strategies That Get Students Thinking
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Majority of U.S. public school students are in poverty

Wow! That headline is a reality I would not have seen coming a generation ago. But those days are here and how do educators adjust their practices. The story below is an emotional one. There are many teachers that go the extra mile to help students on a very personal level from building relationships to providing what most of us would call basic human needs. Our current laws are outdated and are focusing on outstanding classroom achievement when teachers have to build a foundation just so a student from poverty can function before they can thrive.
 
     The following story was first tweeted by Erin Klein is an eye opener. I knew more students were in reduced and free lunch than ever. Some schools offer free breakfasts due to grants received and it is an awesome thing to see all students receive this benefit so it does not stigmatize anyone. But this is not just about lunch. I think this is a powerful story.

Majority of U.S. public school students are in poverty


Three-year-old Saria Amaya waits with her mother after receiving shoes and school supplies during a charity event in October to help more than 4,000 underprivileged children at the Fred Jordan Mission in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles. Children from low-income families now make up a majority of public school students in the nation, according to a new report. (Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images)
By Lyndsey Layton January 16 at 7:40 PM
For the first time in at least 50 years, a majority of U.S. public school students come from low-income families, according to a new analysis of 2013 federal data, a statistic that has profound implications for the nation.
The Southern Education Foundation reports that 51 percent of students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade in the 2012-2013 school year were eligible for the federal program that provides free and reduced-price lunches. The lunch program is a rough proxy for poverty, but the explosion in the number of needy children in the nation’s public classrooms is a recent phenomenon that has been gaining attention among educators, public officials and researchers.
“We’ve all known this was the trend, that we would get to a majority, but it’s here sooner rather than later,” said Michael A. Rebell of the Campaign for Educational Equity at Teachers College at Columbia University, noting that the poverty rate has been increasing even as the economy has improved. “A lot of people at the top are doing much better, but the people at the bottom are not doing better at all. Those are the people who have the most children and send their children to public school.”
The shift to a majority-poor student population means that in public schools, a growing number of children start kindergarten already trailing their more privileged peers and rarely, if ever, catch up. They are less likely to have support at home, are less frequently exposed to enriching activities outside of school, and are more likely to drop out and never attend college.
It also means that education policy, funding decisions and classroom instruction must adapt to the needy children who arrive at school each day.
“When they first come in my door in the morning, the first thing I do is an inventory of immediate needs: Did you eat? Are you clean? A big part of my job is making them feel safe,” said Sonya Romero-Smith, a veteran teacher at Lew Wallace Elementary School in Albuquerque. Fourteen of her 18 kindergartners are eligible for free lunches.
She helps them clean up with bathroom wipes and toothbrushes, and she stocks a drawer with clean socks, underwear, pants and shoes.
Romero-Smith, 40, who has been a teacher for 19 years, became a foster mother in November to two girls, sisters who attend her school. They had been homeless, their father living on the streets and their mother in jail, she said. When she brought the girls home, she was shocked by the disarray of their young lives.
“Getting rid of bedbugs, that took us a while. Night terrors, that took a little while. Hoarding food, flushing a toilet and washing hands, it took us a little while,” she said. “You spend some time with little ones like this and it’s gut wrenching. . . . These kids aren’t thinking, ‘Am I going to take a test today?’ They’re thinking, ‘Am I going to be okay?’ ”
The job of teacher has expanded to “counselor, therapist, doctor, parent, attorney,” she said.
Schools, already under intense pressure to deliver better test results and meet more rigorous standards, face the doubly difficult task of trying to raise the achievement of poor children so that they approach the same level as their more affluent peers.
“This is a watershed moment when you look at that map,” said Kent McGuire, president of the Southern Education Foundation, the nation’s oldest education philanthropy, referring to a large swath of the country filled with high-poverty schools.
“The fact is, we’ve had growing inequality in the country for many years,” he said. “It didn’t happen overnight, but it’s steadily been happening. Government used to be a source of leadership and innovation around issues of economic prosperity and upward mobility. Now we’re a country disinclined to invest in our young people.”
The data show poor students spread across the country, but the highest rates are concentrated in Southern and Western states. In 21 states, at least half the public school children were eligible for free and reduced-price lunches — ranging from Mississippi, where more than 70 percent of students were from low-income families, to Illinois, where one of every two students was low-income.
Carey Wright, Mississippi’s state superintendent of education, said quality preschool is the key to helping poor children.
“That’s huge,” she said. “These children can learn at the highest levels, but you have to provide for them. You can’t assume they have books at home, or they visit the library or go on vacations. You have to think about what you’re doing across the state and ensuring they’re getting what other children get.”
Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, was born in a charity hospital in 1959 to a single mother. Federal programs helped shrink the obstacles he faced, first by providing him with Head Start, the early-childhood education program, and later, Pell grants to help pay tuition at the University of Texas, he said.
The country needs to make that same commitment today to help poor children, he said.
“Even at 8 or 9 years old, I knew that America wanted me to succeed,” he said. “What we know is that the mobility escalator has simply stopped for some Americans. I was able to ride that mobility escalator in part because there were so many people, and parts of our society, cheering me on.”
“We need to fix the escalator,” he said. “We fix it by recommitting ourselves to the idea of public education. We have the capacity. The question is, do we have the will?”
The new report raises questions among educators and officials about whether states and the federal government are devoting enough money — and using it effectively — to meet the complex needs of poor children.
The Obama administration wants Congress to add $1 billion to the $14.4 billion it spends annually to help states educate poor children. It also wants Congress to fund preschool for those from low-income families. Collectively, the states and the federal government spend about $500 billion annually on primary and secondary schools, about $79 billion of it from Washington.
The amount spent on each student can vary wildly from state to state. States with high student-poverty rates tend to spend less per student: Of the 27 states with the highest percentages of student poverty, all but five spent less than the national average of $10,938 per student.
Republicans in Congress have been wary of new spending programs, arguing that more money is not necessarily the answer and that federal dollars could be more effective if redundant programs were streamlined and more power was given to states.
Many Republicans also think that the government ought to give tax dollars to low-income families to use as vouchers for private-school tuition, believing that is a better alternative to public schools.
GOP leaders in Congress have rebuffed President Obama’s calls to fund preschool for low-income families, although a number of Republican and Democratic governors have initiated state programs in the past several years.
The report comes as Congress begins debate about rewriting the country’s main federal education law, first passed as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty” and designed to help states educate poor children. The most recent version of the law, known as No Child Left Behind, has emphasized accountability and outcomes, measuring whether schools met benchmarks and sanctioning them when they fell short.
That federal focus on results, as opposed to need, is wrong­headed, Rebell said.
“We have to think about how to give these kids a meaningful education,” he said. “We have to give them quality teachers, small class sizes, up-to-date equipment. But in addition, if we’re serious, we have to do things that overcome the damages­ of poverty. We have to meet their health needs, their mental health needs, after-school programs, summer programs, parent engagement, early-childhood services. These are the so-called wraparound services. Some people think of them as add-ons. They’re not. They’re imperative.”
Lyndsey Layton has been covering national education since 2011, writing about everything from parent trigger laws to poverty’s impact on education to the shifting politics of school reform.
 
To find out more...

Erin Klein @KleinErin 

Scholastic Top Teacher. MACUL 2014 Teacher of the Year. Blogger. Member. SMART Exemplary Educator. ASCD Emerging Leader. NAIS ToF.

Michigan · http://www.kleinspiration.com
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