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.

The purpose of a K-12 education: Who decides and how do we get there?

In a recent report by Populace (2022), 55 percent of American parents expressed their desire for educators to rethink how today’s K-12 schools are educating our children. The study found that, despite the widespread perception that American society wants K-12 schools to prepare students for college, college is not as important to parents as it used to be. Instead, the study reported, today’s parents would like to see their children develop practical skills “for both life and career” (p. 10), critical thinking skills that allow them “to problem solve and make decisions” (p. 8), and moral character traits such as “honesty, kindness, integrity, [and] ethics” (p. 20).

The Populace study reported that today’s parents want more individualized educational experiences for their children, with greater emphasis on students’ interests and personal/career goals than on a one-size-fits-all curriculum. Parents want their children to have learning opportunities across a variety of modalities, and they want learning to be assessed through demonstration of mastery as opposed to traditional assessments like standardized tests.

According to the Populace study, today’s parents believe that “better” (as in straight As and college bound) should not be the purpose of a K-12 education, but “different” (as in a customized educational experience for every student) should be. It seems that–at least for parents–the purpose of an American K-12 education is changing.…Read More

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Savvas Learning Company Acquires Whooo’s Reading

PARAMUS, NEW JERSEY — Savvas Learning Company, a K-12 next-generation learning solutions leader, announced today that it has acquired Whooo’s Reading and its AI-driven technology that enables teachers to quickly and easily determine whether their students comprehend the books they are reading.

“Artificial intelligence technology has the power to transform K-12 education by dramatically helping to personalize the teaching and learning experience,” said Bethlam Forsa, CEO of Savvas Learning Company. “The AI-driven technology that supports Whooo’s Reading is a great example of this. It gives students personalized and adaptive feedback on their writing and reading skills, empowering them to grow as learners. It also provides teachers with valuable insights into which skills their students need extra support with, allowing them to customize instruction.” 

Backed by the National Science Foundation, the AI technology behind Whooo’s Reading helps students practice reading comprehension skills with in-the-moment feedback on their written responses to open-ended critical thinking questions about the content they are reading. Its proprietary machine-learning algorithm automatically assesses student writing, saving teachers time while also providing them actionable data on their students’ strengths and weaknesses — enabling them to differentiate instruction. …Read More

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

PowerSchool Launches New Tools and Resources to Help Educators Personalize Learning, Support Student Needs, and Increase Operational Excellence

FOLSOM, Calif. — PowerSchool (NYSE: PWSC), the leading provider of cloud-based software for K-12 education in North America, today announced updates to its  PowerSchool Unified Classroom® and  PowerSchool Unified Insights™ solutions. These updates include new data-driven personalized learning products, LearningNav and ContentNav, and a new resource library within  Unified Insights MTSS, which will provide educators with vetted, research-backed strategies and tools. PowerSchool also announced time-saving software Clouds built to provide educators with a more connected approach to planning, engaging, and monitoring students’ unique needs. 

As we emerge from the past two and half years, the impact of the dramatic learning disruptions experienced by students nationwide is evident. In fact, the results from the latest “National Report Card,” distributed by the  National Assessment of Educational Progress, shows declines in math and reading scores for the U.S.’ fourth and eighth graders with math scores having the largest declines since NAEP testing began in 1990. Each student is at a different place in their learning journey, making it clear that educators need tools and resources that will help personalize learning, address individual student needs, and streamline their operations. 

LearningNav: Building Personalized Pathways …Read More

Oregon Public School Breaks State Assessment Score Record with Carnegie Learning

Pittsburgh, PA – Carnegie Learning, a leader in artificial intelligence for K-12 education and formative assessment, announced today that students from the Howard Street Partnership School achieved record-breaking results on Oregon’s state assessment, SBAC, using Carnegie Learning’s core secondary math solution that comprises MATHbook, a consumable write-in text that fosters collaborative classroom learning, and MATHia, the one-on-one, adaptive math coaching software.

Howard Street Charter School in Salem, Oregon, is a project-based institution that pushes students to achieve excellence in all areas of study. Howard Street Charter School is no stranger to academic success and had already achieved  curricular excellence with passing rates above the state average. Carnegie Learning’s math solution helped them achieve even higher.

“Our highest passing rate ever in the history of the school was fifty-two percent before Covid. And now that’s the mid-range,” Principal Christina Tracy states. “Our SBAC data was the best we’ve had for math in 25 years! And we did not teach to the test. We just used Carnegie Learning Math.”…Read More

Carnegie Learning Recognized as Global Innovator on 2023 GSV 150 List

Pittsburgh, PA – Carnegie Learning, a leader in artificial intelligence for K-12 education and formative assessment, announced today it has been selected for the GSV (Global Silicon Valley) 150, a list of the world’s most transformative private companies in education.

Carnegie Learning was chosen from over 4,000 venture capital and private equity-backed private companies revolutionizing the world of education technology. GSV estimates that together, these 150 companies reach roughly 3 billion people—almost half of the global population—and generate approximately $25 billion in revenue.

“It’s an honor to be recognized among such a distinguished list of companies,” says Carnegie Learning CEO Barry Malkin. “Innovation is at the heart of everything we do—from our products to our culture to our people. Not only do we embrace change, we create it. Our commitment to research, more than any other edtech company, and to producing world-class content and technology puts us in a unique position to really make a meaningful impact on education.”…Read More

How K-12 IT leaders can protect schools from ransomware

Cyberattacks on public schools are becoming more common and more severe every year. Between 2020 and 2021, more than 56 percent of K-12 education organizations suffered ransomware attacks with an average cost of $268,000.

Most recently, an attack on the LA Unified School District in September 2022 conducted by the Russian hacking group Vice Society shut down access to emails, computer systems, and applications for more than half a million users. Before that, a ransomware attack on the school system in Buffalo, NY cost the state more than $10 million in damages.

How can these K-12 school districts defend themselves from these ransomware attacks? And why are they being targeted so frequently?…Read More

Charting a path forward in K-12

After several years of disrupted learning, schools are taking stock of the range of challenges that need to be addressed—challenges resulting from the most significant disruption to K-12 education in history.

Across the nation, the pandemic has taken a toll on our children’s mental and physical health, behavioral development, social and emotional well-being, academic achievement, and plans for their future. Unfortunately, there is no quick fix. Rather, educators anticipate a multi-year process of helping struggling students recover from pandemic-related school disruptions.

Addressing the complexity and scale of these challenges requires school and district leaders to make critical choices. But they don’t need to do it alone. All those serving the education community must come together as trusted partners to find solutions, support evidence-based research, and ensure successful implementation of instructional practices to address education’s most critical challenges. …Read More

Risk assessments are awful, but necessary

Between 2021 and 2022, 56 percent of K-12 education organizations were hit by ransomware, a nearly 25 percent increase from the previous year. That’s a staggering number, and a clear indication that threats against schools are only getting worse.

While risk assessments are one of the best things a K-12 school can do to understand their cybersecurity vulnerabilities in order to be strategic about how to protect against them, this critical tool is often avoided. After all, they can be absolutely awful to perform, taking up valuable time, involving confusing jargon and often not even seeming to solve any problems.

If this sounds familiar, there’s some good news. Yes, risk assessments are far from sunshine and roses. But you can get through them with less friction and pain, and ultimately improve your security posture, if you adhere to the following guidelines.…Read More