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.

How administrators can keep funding in their district

One challenge school administrators face is how to keep funding in their districts, especially as enrollment in public schools continues to decline. As public school funding is often directly tied to student enrollment, administrators around the country are having to make difficult decisions to ensure there is no delay in student learning like combining classrooms, laying off staff, and in some instances, closing schools entirely.

As someone who has worked in a variety of administrator roles from a principal in Miami-Dade County Public Schools to the President and Chief Executive Officer of Florida Virtual School (FLVS), I know what that pressure feels like, especially when our ultimate goal is to do what is best for our students and staff.

While there were certainly enrollment declines pre-pandemic, COVID-19 has continued to exacerbate the issue, as more than half of all parents considered or are considering choosing a new school for their children, with 17 percent of parents indicating they chose a new school for their children within the past year, 11 percent considered new schools, and 26 percent are currently considering new schools. Additionally, 48 percent of parents said their community does not offer enough education options for them.…Read More

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Buchanan County Schools See 380% Improvement in Reading with Carnegie Learning

Pittsburgh, PA– Carnegie Learning, a leader in artificial intelligence for K-12 education and formative assessment, announced today that elementary students from Buchanan County, Virginia School District achieved unprecedented reading gains using Carnegie Learning’s Fast ForWord® reading and language program.

Buchanan County Public School students in grades K-5 (950 students) worked in the program five days a week for thirty minutes a day. After just a few months in, students’ hard work started paying off.

“Our third graders take state standardized tests, and our scores used to be pretty good,” explained Connie Hibbitts, Instructional Coach for all four elementary-middle schools in the county and an educator with 34 years of experience. “But over the years, they declined. We knew we needed a program to build foundational reading skills,” she explains. “That’s major. We were looking for something that covered all the underlying components of strong literacy. And this program was it.”…Read More

How a major MD district boosted middle math achievement

Improving math achievement has long been a sticking point for U.S. schools, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic’s negative impact on learning. Now, one Maryland school district is seeing substantial improvements in grades 6-8 math scores.

A new impact study at Prince George’s County Public Schools (PGCPS) found that students in grades 6 to 8 who used Speak Agent Math+Language outperformed their peers who did not use the program. Students who completed 10 Speak Agent learning activities experienced a 10 percent higher mean score than their peers on the PGCPS Math Benchmark assessments.

In addition, multilingual learners experienced a 17-point (five percent) higher mean score on the WIDA ACCESS for ELLs test, in addition to a higher math score. This is the first large-scale study to find a positive, independent effect at a 99.9% confidence level for both Math and English language proficiency scores, as measured by third-party assessments, caused by a single education technology program.…Read More

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Millwood Public Schools receives $116,000 from Paycom, benefitting marching band, music program

OKLAHOMA CITY –  Paycom Software Inc. (NYSE:PAYC),  a leading provider of HR software, gave $116,000 to the Millwood Enrichment Foundation as part of a two-year commitment to the school district. The donation is an investment in the future of Millwood Public Schools and brings new resources that support ongoing and new educational programming. One specific area the funding will impact is Millwood’s expanding marching band program. 

“We greatly appreciate this generous donation from Paycom,” said Milo Wilson, president of Millwood Enrichment Foundation. “The funding will help to provide ongoing support for programs at the district and further improve the quality of education in our schools, specifically to improve our music education programs and provide new instruments for students who participate in band.” 

Millwood’s marching band has grown from around a dozen students in 2019 to over 70 students from grades 6-12 today. The first installment of the two-year financial gift from Paycom of $54,000 will directly support this important program. …Read More

Finding the learning loss data needed to drive learning recovery

The National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) Report Card on learning loss was a sobering but not unexpected reckoning for how deeply and broadly the pandemic impacted student learning and achievement. 

NAEP state-level findings of drops in math and reading scores were followed by the release of the Education Recovery Scorecard, which leveraged NAEP data to offer the first comparable view of district level learning loss during the pandemic. This one-two punch confirms that COVID-19 learning loss was extensive and, in some cases, worse than expected. Recommendations on how to move forward are not in short supply, and for many, data lies at the heart of transitioning from learning loss to learning recovery. 

Funding, policy, and learning decisions without data is a recipe for disaster – particularly given estimates that it will take hundreds of billions of dollars to offset the impact of learning loss. But we also need the right data and the right approach to interpreting this data, to initiate a successful learning recovery process.  …Read More

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13 edtech developments at TCEA 2023

The 2023 TCEA Convention & Exposition offered the opportunity for educators to connect in person and share insights and innovations around teaching and learning.

Held in in San Antonio this year, TCEA 2023 was “the intersection of passion and possibility, curiosity and discovery, education and technology. And it’s the kind of learning that will change the story of education.”

Conferences gave educators–including administrators, classroom teachers, IT leaders, curriculum directors–to attend sessions targeted to their interests and their individual school or district needs. Content touched on social media in the classroom, IT challenges, innovative edtech tools, and more.…Read More

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As Seattle schools sue social media companies, what’s the legal impact?

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

A notable new lawsuit against social media industry leaders by the Seattle school district has left legal experts divided on how the case will unfold.

The complaint — which alleges that the school district and its students have been harmed by social media’s negative effects on youth mental health — could lead to sweeping changes in the industry, one expert said. Or, as others expect, it could fizzle out with little chance of winning in court.…Read More

3 strategies to support student well-being and SEL

The pandemic’s on students’ social and emotional well-being continues to be felt in schools nationwide. Here at Lincoln County R-III School District in Missouri, we are no different. Many of our students are struggling with regulating their emotions. We’re seeing students needing more social and emotional support.

The Lincoln County Resource Board (LCRB) Mid-year School Based Programs Assessment (January, 2022) listed the most critical behavioral/mental health (BH/MH) issues school personnel believed students were facing. 

  • The second most critical BH/MH issue was “anxiety, worry a lot, fear” (93 percent).
  • The third most critical BH/MH issue was “controlling emotions, anger management, and conflict resolution” (78 percent), similar to the May and December of 2020 results. 

These challenges are not unique to our school district; in fact, the demand for social and emotional learning (SEL) programs has grown rapidly as more and more districts see this need grow and recognize the value of implementing these programs. A 2021 Tyton Partners report noted school and district spending on SEL grew approximately 45 percent between November 2019 and April 2021 and that student wellbeing had become the top priority among schools and districts.…Read More