If anyone deserves an A+ this week it’s Marisela Castro, a daughter of farmworkers who turned her Social Action class project at San Jose State University into a campaign to increase the local minimum wage, the Associated Press reports. On Monday her activism paid off, as 70,000 workers in San Jose enjoyed the nation’s single largest minimum-wage increase, a 25 percent raise from $8 to $10 an hour, amounting to a $4,000 annual bump in pay for a full time worker to $22,080.

“I never doubted for a minute we could make this happen,” said Castro, 28, who grew up in agriculture-rich Gilroy, where her parents and at times Castro picked garlic, lettuce and other vegetables in nearby fields.

While putting herself through college in 2011, Castro worked at an after-school program with low-income children who slipped snacks into their backpacks because there wasn’t enough food at home. Meanwhile in her sociology classes she was reading about how a minimum wage job leaves workers — especially those in one of the wealthiest regions of the country — in severe poverty…

Click here for the full story ^[1]

Tableau Software recently announced that it would begin giving away its Tableau Desktop analytics software, says Christopher Dawson for ZDNet Education. Having spent some time with the tool, I can say that this could mark a turning point in the way students think about data. My masters degree has been languishing for years. I’ve completed all of the coursework and only needed to write a thesis. I just couldn’t manage to prioritize it over writing jobs that actually paid me. And then Tableau Software reached out to me a couple weeks ago about their new initiative to help students and teachers begin using their desktop analytics product for free and, in turn, learn about big data hands on. Suddenly, I had a project I couldn’t resist. A student’s and teacher’s guide to data analytics using Tableau with public datasets…

Click here for the full story ^[2]

A Texas school district has assembled a SWAT team ^[3] to bolster school safety, local NBC affiliate KVEO reports. The decision comes after the Dec. 14 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School ^[4], the Huffington Post reports. Following the Connecticut massacre, the Edinburg Consolidated Independent School District dispatched police officers to all its elementary schools ^[5] in order to strengthen security. Though the project, dubbed Operation Safeguard, was suspended ^[6] in January after Edinburg CISD police chief Rick Perez announced schools were safe, the district decided to put together a special SWAT — Special Weapons And Tactics — unit to prepare for potential future threats. According to school officials, the district’s proximity to the United States-Mexico border ^[7] was also a factor in the decision, ABC affiliate KRGV reports…

Click here for the full story ^[8]

How long does it take you to get ready in the morning? According to a student-made video by the teens at Plano Senior High School ^[9] in Texas, girls from the school take anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours to get ready for school in the morning, the Huffington Post reports. However, when male students were interviewed, they said it only took them between 10 and 25 minutes. This discovery inspired them to create “Operation Beautiful,” a school-wide initiative encouraging PSHS students to go makeup-free for 24 hours on Friday. For students Madeline Milby, Binna Kim and Monica Plenger, the goal was to focus on their inner-beauty and encourage girls to cut down on the hours they spend putting on makeup and doing their hair.

“I think there’s pressure for girls to look a certain way, to meet a standard. The standard is being pushed through media and magazines and everything,” Milby told ABC News ^[10]. “I’m really hoping it’ll make the girls at school feel more comfortable and see that they’re beautiful without makeup and they don’t need to use makeup to cover up themselves.”

Click here for the full story ^[11]

America’s schools are in such disrepair that it would cost more than $270 billion just to get elementary and secondary buildings back to their original conditions and twice that to get them up to date, a report released Tuesday estimated. In a foreword to the report, former President Bill Clinton said “we are still struggling to provide equal opportunity” to children and urged the first federal study of school buildings in almost two decades.

Clinton and the Center for Green Schools ^[12] urged a Government Accountability Office assessment on what it would take to get school buildings up to date to help students learn, keep teachers healthy and put workers back on the jobs. The last such report, issued in 1995 during the Clinton administration, estimated it would take $112 billion to bring the schools into good repair and did not include the need for new buildings to accommodate the growing number of students.

The Center for Green Schools’ researchers reviewed spending and estimates schools spent $211 billion on upkeep between 1995 and 2008. During that same time, schools should have spent some $482 billion, the group calculated based on a formula included in the most recent GAO study.

That left a $271 billion gap between what should have been spent on upkeep and what was, the group reported. Each student’s share? Some $5,450.

To update and modernize the buildings, the figure doubles, to $542 billion over the next decade.

“We have a moral obligation,” said Rachel Gutter, director of the group affiliated with the U.S. Green Building Council. “When we talk about a quality education, we talk about the “who” and the “what” — teachers and curriculum — but we don’t talk about the “where.” That needs to change.”

Her organization is urging the Education Department to collect annual data on school buildings’ sizes and ages, as well as property holdings. The group also wants the Education Department’s statistics branch to keep tabs on utility and maintenance bills.

“It’s a secret that we’re keeping because it’s shameful and embarrassing to us as a country,” Gutter said.

Horror stories abound about schools with roofs that leak, plumbing that backs up and windows that do little to stop winds.

“Would you send your kids or grandkids to one of these schools?” asked National Education Association ^[13] President Dennis Van Roekel, who supported the report along with the 21st Century School Fund ^[14], the American Federation of Teachers ^[15], the American Lung Association ^[16] and the National PTA ^[17].

Schools’ appearances alone, of course, do not guarantee students’ success but it is certainly more difficult to teach and learn when water is coming in through the ceiling, pipes are growling or rooms are frigid.

(Next page: Green schools and poverty)

The report does not assign blame for schools’ disrepair but the problems often start at the local and state levels. In most cases, schools are funded by local property taxes and they are reliant on their neighbors’ wealth and willingness to fund their schools. A National Center for Education Statistics found large disparities between schools in areas of high poverty and those in more affluent areas.

The green schools’ report — and price tag — takes those into account but also expands the definition to include energy-efficient heating and cooling systems, sufficient electrical outlets in classrooms and enough energy to power equipment such as computers.

“As sad as it sounds, that’s a realistic number,” said Barbara Worth, director of strategic and private development at the Council of Educational Facility Planners International ^[18]. “Most of the buildings in this country are over 50 years old and they were not built to last.”

National surveys of school facilities have been few and far between.

The last GAO report came in 1995 and the one before that was in 1965, Clinton wrote in his introductory letter to the report. The report that came on his watch indicated 15,000 schools were circulating air deemed unfit to breathe.

“Nothing was done since then, obviously,” said Worth, with the trade group that represents school facility planners. “They are in deplorable shape, they’re unhealthy.”

Clinton said the time has passed for action.

“Nearly 20 years later, in a country where public education is meant to serve as the great equalizer for all of its children, we are still struggling to provide equal opportunity when it comes to the upkeep, maintenance and modernization of our schools and classrooms,” Clinton wrote in his introduction to the report.

“Every day we let pass without addressing inefficient energy practices, poor indoor air quality and other problems associated with unhealthy learning environments, we are passing up tremendous opportunities. … I’m optimistic that by working together, we can give our children the best possible education and make America the world’s greatest innovator for generations to come,” Clinton wrote.

The notion that struggling and failing is important to learning runs counter to traditional approaches to U.S. education. In fact, failure and its accompanying “F” grade stigmatizes a student as unprepared or “challenged” and is usually seen as a predictor of failure in future grades.

In the world of gaming, however, the very elements of struggle, challenge, and failure that discourage kids in the classroom become the primary drivers of engagement and achievement.

In 2011, after 14 years of teaching, I decided to transform my second grade classroom into a living video game. The inspiration for this was the book, Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World ^[19] by Jane McGonigal. McGonigal’s message is that the monotony of classroom routines can be deadening to kids, that individuals are wired to need brain stimulation, and that even the most straightforward games can provide that.

How to keep the attention of students is an ongoing topic of conversation among educators. But as McGonigal points out, when they’re interested in something, kids demonstrate a powerful ability to maintain focus on even the most challenging tasks. Case in point: video games, which are so challenging that players fail 80 percent of the time—and yet are still motivated to persevere. If we can tap into even a fraction of this energy and enthusiasm, I thought, then we can effect the kind of educational transformation called for in the 21^st century.

I began the transformation of my classroom by looking at the curriculum and writing storylines that would challenge students to solve science, technology, engineering, and math-related scenarios. For example, one such storyline under the reading content area is, “Explain how two given scientific conclusions are similar, and identify which of the scientists we’ve studied might have written these conclusions based on textual evidence.”  A math example storyline is, “How are fractions connected to the concept of multiplication?”

I use QR codes and augmented reality codes to help students move independently from one activity to the next. Kids use cell phones or tablets to scan the barcodes, which take them to websites or instruction pages with directions for the next activity, or to “cheat codes,” with strategies to help them solve the “boss-level problem.” I even decided to forgo the usual grading system in my classroom, so that as far as the students knew, they were either “Leveling Up!” (proficient) or they needed more practice with “Game Over: Try Again.” They stopped defining themselves by grades and saw “try again” as an opportunity to do just that.

In this innovative environment, students are active players in their own educational game. Each player creates an avatar that can be upgraded as students unlock features by mastering skills and levels. For example, when students master their addition fact fluency level, they earn a digital “fact + master” badge. When they master both addition and subtraction fact fluency, they earn a digital “math fact whiz” badge and avatar upgrade—and their digital badges are displayed on their individual Wikispace pages.

Students use Web 2.0 tools such as GoAnimate ^[20], Voki ^[21], and Xtranormal ^[22] to create animated videos, speaking avatars, and 3D animated movies to demonstrate learning. Another example of an assessment comes from our recent unit on states of matter. Students were asked to create cartoons using the app ToonTastic, where the main superhero’s powers were the characteristics of their chosen state of matter and the arch nemesis was a character who would cause an irreversible change to their superhero (such as fire burning wood).

Technology is an essential and critical component of my classroom and is used in an organic and authentic way: as a tool to find information, synthesize content, and create learning evidence to ultimately “beat the level.” Students also use technology to collaborate and discuss what they’re learning. Through ePals ^[23], individual students are matched up with peers in Egypt, Canada, Germany, and other countries, and on one designated day a week, they have a Skype video conference with their ePal about what they’re learning in math, science, or English.

From a teacher’s point of view, this method of delivering content requires a letting go of the stage, but not control of the classroom as it might initially seem. The activities are rigorous enough for my second graders to be challenged and engaged, but not so difficult as to frustrate them to the point of quitting. Integrated into this type of learning strategy is an ongoing review of previously learned skills, as point values are given to every activity—and even if kids succeed in “leveling up,” they are compelled to return to a previously “mastered” skill activity and try to beat their score.

See also:

How ‘game mechanics’ can revitalize education ^[24]

How to engage girls with gaming ^[25]

I spend approximately 30-45 minutes a day in direct whole-class instruction.  The rest of the time I am facilitating thinking through monitoring their work, asking pointed guiding questions, or pulling aside small groups and helping students develop skills they will need to advance in the game. It takes more meticulous planning on my part to create the codes and activities that elicit independent thinking and collaborative work, but the payoff in student behavior, self-esteem, motivation, and determination is well worth it.

The results of this innovative approach to learning have far surpassed my expectations. After only three months of the gaming concept, student scores on the Northwest Evaluation Association’s Measures of Academic Progress test showed a 71 percent improvement in reading fluency, 58 percent improvement in reading comprehension, and 76 percent overall improvement in math, particularly in problem solving.

Fortune 500 companies are seeking graduates who have empathy and a strong ability to look at a problem from all angles. Our students are learning without us, so we need to be relevant, significant, and inspirational to our students. We need to give them the opportunity to discovery their own gifts and abilities to find solutions to problems, and to discover their independence as thinkers and doers.

Joli Barker is a second grade teacher at Earl H. Slaughter Elementary School in McKinney, Texas. She was recently named TCEA 2013 Classroom Teacher of the Year.