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Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

Los Angeles Unified School District Offers Spectrum Enterprise Stay Connected K-12 Solution to Families as a Way to Receive Robust Home Internet Access at No Cost to Students

LOS ANGELES – Charter Communications, Inc. today announced that it is working with the  Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the country’s second largest school district, to help thousands of families who lack robust internet connectivity at home enroll in the  Spectrum Enterprise  Stay Connected K-12 solution, which is provided at no cost for students. The Stay Connected K-12 offering is part of the District’s broader efforts to help close the digital divide in its communities and make it easier for all students to fulfill their academic potential.

Stay Connected K-12 provides schools the ability to offer high-speed, reliable broadband internet access directly to their students in their own homes so learning and teaching are uninterrupted. Participating families are not billed for the service.

“Without reliable internet access, our students don’t have what they need to learn,” said Alberto Carvalho, Superintendent of LAUSD. “It’s as simple as that. Los Angeles Unified is relentless in our efforts to equip our students with the resources they need to achieve their full academic potential.”…Read More

Bamboo Learning’s “Comprehension Through Conversation” EdTech Solution for K–5 Students Gaining Momentum

SEATTLE—March 7, 2022—Bamboo Learning, Inc. today announced that Bamboo learning EDU, the first “Comprehension Through Conversation” learning application for students in grades K through 5 introduced in January 2022, has been selected for an innovative student literacy pilot at the John Rex Charter School (JRCS) in Oklahoma City. JRCS, which was recognized as a 2020 National Blue Ribbon
School, seeks to determine the Bamboo Learning EDU solution’s impact on reading achievement, speaking fluency, vocabulary acquisition, and content knowledge-building among its economically and racially diverse student body. All JRCS students in grades K–1 have iPads for use at school, making the Bamboo Learning EDU iPad app an excellent fit.

Bamboo Learning also announced today that LearnPlatform, a nationally recognized edtech research company, has certified that the Bamboo Learning EDU solution meets the evidence requirements of Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) aligning with Level IV “Demonstrates a Rationale” status. LearnPlatform’s team of researchers analyzed Bamboo Learning EDU’s foundational pedagogy, concluded that Bamboo Learning EDU’’s Logic Model is informed by high-quality research, and outlined the expected short-term, intermediate, and long-term outcomes.

“Bamboo Learning’s innovative ‘Comprehension Through Conversation’ approach to literacy has a solid grounding in existing research,” said Dr. Mary Styers, Director of Research at LearnPlatform. “By offering fiction and nonfiction books leveled by grade, and inviting students to use their voice to engage in reading & listening comprehension and vocabulary building activities, the product has a clear pathway
to improving student literacy.”…Read More

KIPP Public Schools Expands Partnership with YouScience Bringing Student Aptitude Assessments to 48 Schools Across the Nation

AMERICAN FORK, Utah, March 3, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Today,  YouScience announced its career guidance tool,  YouScience Discovery, is now available for students in 48  KIPP Public Schools, a network of national public charter schools. With the recent expansion, YouScience Discovery now reaches over 3,000 high school and 200 middle school students. Nearly 19,000 KIPP Public School students have taken the YouScience Discovery Assessment since the partnership began in 2016.

YouScience is the only provider of a fully-integrated platform that delivers highly accurate aptitude-based assessments, personalized career guidance, and industry-recognized certifications. With YouScience Discovery, KIPP students are provided with a proven, research-based assessment that empowers them to discover their aptitudes, eliminating their natural bias and showcasing opportunities for success.

“Knowing what students are good at, or their natural aptitude, is one of the most accurate measures of which careers they will excel in. It’s critical we help students understand this as early as possible, so that they can select the best educational pathway for themselves. In return, this will help combat the country’s current talent gap,” said Edson Barton, Founder and CEO of YouScience.…Read More

K-12 Districts Nationwide Expand Usage of ParentSquare to Strengthen Family Engagement

SANTA BARBARA, CALIF. Jan. 20, 2022—As educators gear up for the remainder of the 2021-22 school year, school-to-home engagement continues to be a top priority. To unify all school communication and build stronger communities, school systems nationwide — including public, private, and charter school systems — have signed on to expand their use of ParentSquare, the premier unified school-home engagement platform for K-12.

Recent school districts to renew and expand their ParentSquare features include the Pleasanton Unified School District, Napa Valley Unified School District, and the Yakima School District. ParentSquare is the only fully unified product that engages every family with school communications and communications-based services—all the way from the district office to the classroom teacher, and all in one place.

Extending community reach. Pleasanton USD, in northern California, has over 14,000 students enrolled in its 30 schools. The district’s overarching goal for signing on with ParentSquare was to make information more accessible and digestible for families, especially during the pandemic. The district recently adopted ParentSquare’s new Community Groups feature to contact alumni of its oldest high school about that school’s centennial. “Some alumni have email, some just have a phone number, but with Community Groups, we now can reach everyone, with relevant information,” said Patrick Gannon, the district’s communications and community engagement coordinator.…Read More

Inaugural Catalyze Challenge Winners To Transform Journey From Classroom To Career

SAN FRANCISCO, NOVEMBER 4, 2021 – In an effort to level the playing field for all students and catapult young people into meaningful careers, the Catalyze Challenge, co-sponsored by American Student Assistance, Arnold Ventures, Charter School Growth Fund and the Walton Family Foundation has awarded over $4M to accelerate bold career-connected learning solutions aimed at helping students better access economic opportunity after leaving school.  

Fifteen winners — community organizations, entrepreneurs, and cross-sector partnerships from across the country — will pilot, launch and scale solutions designed for the leaders of tomorrow’s workforce. 

“Being a thriving, productive and joyful member of society means having the agency to meaningfully shape one’s own future and the future of our communities. There’s never been a more opportune moment to equip young people with the skills and mindsets to drive change for themselves and our country,” said Romy Drucker, Education Program Interim Director at the Walton Family Foundation.…Read More

5 ways bullying changed during the pandemic

Throughout my career as a school counselor, I’ve worked with students in a variety of educational settings. This includes alternative and charter schools, traditional brick-and-mortar settings, and online school.

Even though they’re all different, I’ve witnessed similar bullying behavior and trends in each of them.

Here are five ways bullying has changed during the pandemic–and one way it’s stayed the same:…Read More

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ASU Prep Digital Forges Partnership With Ohio Charter School Network To Reduce Student Learning Loss Due To Covid Quarantine

ARIZONA AND OHIO (Sept. 16, 2021) – After powering through a year or more of remote and hybrid learning due to COVID, a significant share of traditional school districts are returning to familiar in-person models this school year. Even so, the advantages of online learning remain clear, particularly in the event of student quarantines. In Cleveland, one forward-thinking network of schools is offering students and their families a first-of-its-kind solution to keep students up to date with the school content and curriculum they have the potential to miss because of a COVID quarantine.

A new offering called Learning Under Quarantine from ASU Prep Digital, envisioned for Breakthrough Public Schools in collaboration with The 305 Education Group, is now in place. To prevent COVID learning losses, ASU Prep Digital provides online instructors to teach Cleveland-area students who miss in-person learning due to a 10-day quarantine. This innovative approach increases teaching and learning time simultaneously, while providing a practical solution for schools that simply do not have the human or financial resources to operate dual in-person and online models.

During the 2020-21 school year, Breakthrough – one of the highest-performing public, nonprofit charter school networks in Ohio – only operated remotely. However, for the 2021-22 academic year, network leaders knew changes were necessary.…Read More

Cleveland Metropolitan School District Deploys the Stay Connected K-12 Solution from Spectrum Enterprise to Enhance the Learning Experience for Students Needing Robust Home Internet

CLEVELAND, Ohio – With many school districts continuing to look for ways to help students who don’t have robust internet service at home maximize their learning potential, Charter Communications, Inc., which operates the Spectrum brand, today announced that Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) is deploying the Spectrum Enterprise Stay Connected K-12 solution as a multi-year solution. More than 5,300 families are anticipated to participate initially.

Stay Connected K-12 provides schools the ability to offer high-speed, cable broadband internet access directly to their students in their own homes so learning and teaching are uninterrupted. Students’ families are not billed for the service.

Stay Connected K-12 combines the robust speeds and rich features of Spectrum Internet with simplified program management and billing for local districts through Spectrum Enterprise. Users can enjoy:…Read More

Engaging resources were critical to successful pandemic learning

New research released from the Center for Public Research and Leadership (CPRL) at Columbia University finds that digitally accessible, high-quality instructional materials designed to bring students, families, and educators together increased student learning and engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research reveals possibilities for sustained partnership between schools and families moving forward.

Despite challenges associated with remote learning, students, families, and educators from nine school districts and charter school organizations across seven states told researchers that students with access to high-quality instructional materials and support from a caregiver learned about the same – and sometimes more – than they would have in a “typical” year. Their experience was in contrast to students who struggled academically, and at a time that many fear learning loss among students because of pandemic-related learning disruptions.

“We learned through virtual schooling that educators’ use of high-quality, culturally responsive instructional materials that are enabled by technology and educative for families can be a game changer,” said Elizabeth Chu, Executive Director of CPRL. “Instead of families being ‘passive recipients’ of instruction, it’s time for a new model in education that brings families fully into the instructional process by using high-quality instructional materials to help foster close coordination and collaboration between students, families and educators.” …Read More

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Reading Plus Insight Assessment Approved As Universal Screener For Hawaii Department of Education Longitudinal Data System

Literacy Measurement Tool is the Only LDS-integrated Assessment That Provides Data on Student Motivation and Silent Reading Rate 

Winooski, Vt. (May 5, 2021) – Reading Plus, an evidence-based online program that uses personalized instruction to improve students’ reading fluency, today announced its InSight assessment is now included in the Hawaii Department of Education’s longitudinal data system (LDS) as an approved universal assessment screener. The Hawaii DOE uses the LDS, which serves all public and charter schools in the state, to store student information, including assessment data, in one central location. 

Reading Plus is an adaptive literacy tool designed to support teachers with differentiated instruction for all students, including Tiers 1-3 and multilingual learners. The InSight assessment provides a holistic view of student progress, measuring motivation to read in addition to vocabulary, comprehension, and comprehension-based silent reading rate. InSight, which gives a composite reading proficiency grade-level score, is strongly correlated with national and state reading assessments. As a result, Reading Plus can serve not only as an instructional program, but also as a key component in a school’s or district’s literacy assessment. Including Hawaii, Reading Plus is used in more than 6,200 schools nationwide and improves reading proficiency by 2.5 grade levels in a single school year.

With InSight’s approval as a universal assessment screener, all Hawaii schools will be able to utilize the evaluation and track student data through the LDS. InSight’s rich analyses give teachers a deep understanding of their students’ literacy needs, helping them empower diverse learners to follow personalized paths to reading proficiency.

“The Hawaii DOE is highly selective when it comes to adding programs into the LDS and we’re proud InSight is now included,” said Steven Guttentag, CEO of Reading Plus. “We’re pleased that our assessment can support the state’s administrators in their effort to aggregate student data to provide a holistic and longitudinal picture of students’ literacy growth. With the ability to measure motivation, a key factor in skill building and developing confident readers, InSight is a unique asset in the classroom – particularly when paired with the Reading Plus program.”

Reading Plus received the highest Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) evidence of effectiveness ranking—level one for “strong evidence”—revealing a statistically significant effect on improving student outcomes. To learn more about the benefits of Reading Plus and the InSight assessment, visit www.readingplus.com.


ABOUT READING PLUS
Reading Plus is an evidence-based, online program that provides personalized instruction and intervention for students, improving reading proficiency by 2.5 grade levels in a single school year. The adaptive literacy program develops fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary, while also measuring student motivation. It supports students with diverse needs, including multilingual learners, students who qualify for special education services, RTI/MTSS Tiers 1–3, and advanced readers. Reading Plus provides educators with an easy-to-use management and reporting system, extensive resources to guide differentiated instruction, professional development, and highly rated customer support. Used in more than 7,800 schools, the Reading Plus program is helping over 1 million students become confident, lifelong readers. For more information, visit www.readingplus.com.…Read More