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A significant trend is growing among high school graduates in the class of 2023, with 55 percent opting out of the traditional four-year college route, according to a new survey from YouScience, a technology provider dedicated to solving the skills gap crisis for students and employers. The findings from YouScience’s second annual national 2023 Post-Graduation Readiness Report.
Comparatively, for graduates spanning the 2019-22 classes, this figure stood at 48 percent, signaling a noteworthy transformation within the education landscape. This paradigm shift highlights a growing sentiment among recent high school graduates, who are increasingly questioning the value of pursuing a conventional four-year college degree and exploring alternative pathways.…Read More
Every now and then, Ayden Corbett has to explain to surprised homeowners what he’s doing in their front yard.
Since the second semester of his senior year of high school, he has responded to field calls as an employee of the largest underground utility locating company in North America — the Indianapolis-based U.S. Infrastructure Company (USIC). The white truck and multicolored flags marking the location of water, power, and telecommunications lines usually give it away. …Read More
Imagine you’re teaching a class, and instead of that time-consuming grading, you have AI in the classroom, taking care of the rote tasks. Interesting, but not quite a blockbuster movie scenario, right? It leaves you with time to ponder the intricacies of your educational philosophy or perhaps even enjoy a quiet lunch break.…Read More
As COVID-19 swept the nation beginning in 2019, no one knew just how life-altering the pivot to remote work and education would be. Today, we see more and more students and employees alike who are relying on technology to engage with their work and peers than ever before. As with holidays and other unanticipated events, this pivot drew in some of the biggest minds in security who worked to eliminate cybersecurity challenges stemming from this change – but it also drew in hackers.
Shoring up cybersecurity practices in the education industry is quite the feat. User authorization is extremely challenging, as IT professionals must navigate through different levels of access for each user community. This creates even higher risks because networks must be open to employees, students, and others – an issue most businesses don’t need to manage.…Read More
SolarWinds Observability offers K-12 schools an indispensable tool to enhance network performance and security. With real-time insights into IT infrastructure, schools can proactively detect and mitigate issues, ensuring seamless digital learning experiences. This platform enables efficient resource allocation, optimizing technology investments and reducing downtime.
This is part two in a two-part series. Part one focused on four major challenges facing the teaching profession. Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to get these stories and more delivered straight to your inbox.
America’s schools face a number of warning signs about the teaching profession: higher turnover, lower morale, declining interest in the profession among college students, persistent shortages in certain subjects. These problems could have big consequences for students.…Read More
While students grew academically in the 2022-23 school year, achievement gains fell short of pre-pandemic trends in most grades, with the exception of the youngest students who bucked this trend and made above average achievement gains, according to a new report from nonprofit K-12 assessment and research organization NWEA.
The report is the latest in NWEA’s efforts to track the impact of pandemic disruptions on academic gains and achievement levels for U.S. students using data from the 2022-23 academic year. This analysis provides the most current evidence to help guide recovery efforts and resource allocations in support of schools. While the pandemic is now deemed over, the impacts on students based on two markers, achievement in reading and mathematics, are still apparent.…Read More
Immersive learning experiences are all the rage, and for good reason—they engage students and help make challenging concepts–particularly STEM concepts–a bit easier to learn thanks to they way they are presented.
Pathogen Patrol, a new 3D immersive learning experience from Project Lead The Way, brings important STEM learning content to life. These learning experiences give students another way to learn educational concepts, such as space exploration or different processes in the human body, which are typically challenging to teach with traditional methods.…Read More
I learned to love reading as a kid, spellbound by wizarding worlds and ghost stories. I wanted to share this love, so I became an intervention teacher, working with struggling readers and special education students.
Kids love reading. I don’t care what think pieces say about screen addiction, children still gravitate towards books. If they can’t read, they like looking at the pictures in “Dogman” or listening to Junie B.’s antics. …Read More
Adolescents are in crisis right now. Social media, pandemic isolation, gun violence, and structural racism have formed a perfect storm. It’s been so devastating to teens that the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and Children’s Hospital Association together declared a national state of emergency in children’s mental health.
CDC data show 42 percent of teens feel “persistently sad or hopeless,” and 1 in 5 have seriously considered suicide. Just tally up the effects of the past few years. The number of anxious and depressed teens soared during and after the pandemic. The harmful impact of Instagram, particularly on adolescent girls, was all over the news. Recently, the Surgeon General issued a warning about social media, saying, “We are in the middle of a national youth mental health crisis, and I am concerned that social media is an important driver of that crisis.” While coming to school should be for learning and friendship, students are pausing to practice in case an active shooter bursts in, leading to a syndrome called vicarious traumatization.…Read More
I’m still digesting all the conversations, sessions, events, and walkabouts from this year’s ISTE in Philadelphia (not to mention the July 4th barbecue in between!) However, specific themes are certainly starting to come together as I look back on my footage and notes and as I begin to read other folks’ commentary online. I’ve already touched upon some of this and intend to explore more in the next few weeks. I would also like to expand this list as most people share their thoughts and ideas. Please forward them along! (Want the full eSchool News product roundup? Buckle up and click here.) All still photography courtesy of ISTE.
AI—This time last year at ISTE in New Orleans, there was some big-picture discussion about the potential of artificial intelligence, along with a bit of fear-mongering. This year, I was hard-pressed to find a booth or have a conversation without at least a mention of it. And for good reason. I like to think my prediction that the PowerSchool announcement will be baking Microsoft’s Azure tools into its platform was in fact the biggest but not the only news in this category. Impero Softwareannounced that it has incorporated AI and machine learning into its newly debuted “Impero Wellbeing” student safety software. When installed on student devices, the software actively and automatically monitors for harmful keywords – such as those having to do with self-harm, bullying, violence, drugs, weapons, pornography or radicalization. If the software detects a student typing potentially dangerous keywords, it then records the incident by snapping a series of screenshots and flagging them in real-time for teacher and administrator review.
The AI component is able to sort through the potentially thousands of flags and intelligently cut through false positives to give teachers immediate visibility to any concerning student behavior. ASCD intends to add AI functionality to Witsby, their new professional learning and credentialing platform featuring ASCD’s content. Designed for digital, the next-generation professional learning platform features thousands of bite-sized learning objects, courses and on-demand content from ASCD authors and experts to support the ongoing development and growth of teachers. Witsby is backed by analytics, multi-layered reporting tools and authoring capabilities to give school leaders the ability to blend their own professional development assets with ASCD professional learning content. …Read More