In schools with a police presence, arrest rates more than doubled compared to those without one, new research from the U.S. Government Accountability Office declares.

Similar outcomes were found when the researchers accounted for race. Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, Black and American Indian/Alaska Native students were arrested at rates two to three times higher than those of white students. The data reflects Department of Education data from the 2017-18 school year, the most recent available data.

“Our analysis and Education’s own guidance recognize that students can experience even greater adverse consequences as their race, gender, and disability statuses overlap,” the report reads.

The report also references recent investigations by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights surrounding disparities in disciplinary practices in several school districts. Most recently, an investigation concluded that the Pasco County School District in Florida engaged in “disability discrimination” under federal law. The Justice Department stated that “the district routinely relied on suspensions and referrals to law enforcement to respond to students’ disability-related behaviors that it could have addressed through proper behavioral interventions and support.”

More from DA: 9 ways to promote STEM to your female students

Recommendations

In light of these findings, the GAO offers three recommendations for the Department of Education, including:

• Collecting arrest and referral data, by race, for students with disabilities who receive services under Section 504.
• Disclosing the limitations of its 2021-22 arrest data. This includes confirming and disclosing which definitions K12 districts used or specifying that arrest data for that year is not comparable among districts.
• Clearly informing school districts about future changes to arrest and referral data in its civil rights data collection.

“Education’s civil rights data are a critical tool for helping OCR, policymakers, researchers, schools, parents and key stakeholders understand and address potential disparities in arrest and referral rates among various groups of students,” the report concludes.

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Female students experience exposure gaps to various STEM careers as early as middle school, a new report from YouScience and Ford Next Generation Learning asserts. This gap is measured by comparing the difference between female middle and high school students’ aptitude (their natural ability to learn or perform skills regardless of the environment) and their self-reported interest.

Failure to support a diverse workforce in STEM careers early on can lead to significant problems, including innovation deficits, earning disparities and economic disruptions. “We can no longer overlook young women who have the aptitude but have not been exposed to these opportunities,” Executive Director at Ford Next Generation Learning Cheryl Carrier said in the report. “We are now equipped with the knowledge to do better, so we must.”

The widest exposure gaps exist in advanced manufacturing and computer and technology careers at 87%. Exposure gaps were measured in other fields like architecture and construction, which are around 55%. The health science career gap sits around 30%, and engineering, 22%.

More from DA: School boards and AI—Is it the new hot topic?

Advice for leaders

The researchers have identified nine solutions to closing STEM exposure gaps for female students. These ideas include:

1. Aptitude measures: A foundational tool that helps students discover their best fit for postsecondary education and career pathways.
2. Career academies: High school programs focused on specific career fields.
3. Collaborative planning: Working with family, educators and counselors to help students navigate their postsecondary goals.
4. Interdisciplinary education: Collaboration between schools and districts to create personalized pathways and integrated programs.
5. Career-connected learning: Helps students connect education to the real world.
6. Education-to-career planning tools: Helps counselors and teachers provide personalized plans for postsecondary education and training.
7. Industry-recognized certifications: Quantifying student knowledge and skills that connect the classroom to employers.
8. Work-based learning: Provides students with internships and apprenticeships with business and industry partners.
9. Community connections: Leveraging ties to address local workforce needs.

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In March, the U.S. Department of Education, in partnership with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), launched the Government Coordinating Council for the Education Facilities Subsector, a direct response to the ransomware attacks that continue to create challenges for K12 schools. The group aims to build a more resilient and secure K12 digital infrastructure through structured dialogue and shared best practices.

District Administration recently spoke with one of its members, Jennifer Silva, who is also the director of external relations at the National Association of Secondary School Principals, about the kind of support superintendents and building leaders can expect from the council heading into the 2024-25 school year.

Note: The following Q&A has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Tell me about the Government Coordinating Council and the role you play in it.

“CISA and the Department of Homeland Security called on [NASSP] to participate because we represent the Principal Recovery Network. It’s a group of school leaders who have been directly impacted by school shootings, and we focus on the recovery aspect of it.

This work has led us to work on the hill, lobbying Congress on elements of Project SERV grant funding and other legislative proposals like swatting, fake threats, cybersecurity and other issues.

We launched in the last week of March and our efforts surround strengthening cybersecurity in schools. Education is a huge area because of the school violence that’s happening. The principal’s voice is instrumental in playing a part in the development of a school system.

We’ve only had several meetings, but there’s been a lot of introduction and establishment of our short- and long-term goals. There are a lot of partnerships involved in the council itself.

What we want to work on primarily, at least on the short-term end of things, is the accessibility of grants. A lot of schools don’t have grant writers or adequate funding. We want to make it more accessible. Also, we want to have conversations surrounding the safety and infrastructure of schools, especially for low-income schools. They don’t have the kind of staff capacity that other schools do.”

Can you describe the current state of K12 cybersecurity?

“What I’m hearing on the ground when we go to our state conferences is a lot of talk about swatting. Those threats are literally activating a school community as if it’s a real threat. Imagine the resources that are expanded there and the trauma of that. This is an out-of-control problem across so many schools.

I’ll give you an example. In one of our Principal Recovery Network schools, because they’ve had a school shooting, they can experience anywhere from a little over 2,000 fake and legitimate threats a year. It’s absolutely out of control, which is why we’re stepping in to create some solutions around the risk assessments and risks in general of school cybersecurity teams and systems.

To answer your question, cybersecurity has increased over the past few years. We’re always trying to figure out a way to integrate safeguards around the system itself.”

What kind of support can leaders expect from the council as they prepare for the 2024-25 school year?

“One of the things we want to do is make sure we’re providing not just the short-term, but the long-term sustainability. When we send out recommendations, we want communities to come together as a solution, not to be siloed.

It could take a long time for these recommendations to be adopted at the federal level, but they could be very easily integrated at the state or local levels quickly because these threats are happening all the time.”

More DA coverage

• 4 ways tech is helping kids avoid summer learning slides
• Marlin ISD was failing. Now this superintendent is changing trajectories
• “We fail to build strong children:” This bill slashes education budget by 13%

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Last week, California became the 26th state to require finance education for its high school students. By 2027, students will have access to a stand-alone personal finance course, the new law declares.

Gov. Gavin Newsom contends that financial literacy is a necessary skill that students should obtain at an early age.

“We need to help Californians prepare for their financial futures as early as possible,” Newsom said in a statement. “Saving for the future, making investments and spending wisely are lifelong skills that young adults need to learn before they start their careers, not after.”

A recent report from consultant company Tyton Partners reveals that only 24% of high school students were guaranteed at least one semester of personal finance as of March 2023. In California, less than 1% of high school students are required to take a personal finance course.

“Every child should have the opportunity to build these essential skills before navigating adults financial choices, not just those who happen to have the opportunity to learn these concepts at home or through an elective,” State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond said in a statement.

California’s move comes more than six months after Pennsylvania became the 25th state to guarantee a stand-alone, half-credit course in financial literacy, according to finance curriculum provider Next Gen Personal Finance, which also offers a live dashboard tracking financial education requirements in the U.S.

In 2020, only eight states required the curriculum. By 2022, that number had grown to 17.

DA coverage

For a more in-depth look at which states require finance education, view the dashboard here. Or, read up on District Administration’s latest coverage surrounding curriculum and instruction below:

• Want to teach AI literacy? Here are 5 new strategies
• 5 reasons homeschooling might be more appealing to parents
• 9 ways state tests could be more useful to teachers
• 

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At the time of this report, areas like Freeport, Texas were experiencing wind gusts of 94 mph, CNN reports, and nearly 80% of flights at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport have been canceled. When Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Texas just before 4 a.m., Monday morning, it was labeled a Category 1 hurricane.

Local and national news reports have shared the list of districts that have closed operations for the day to keep students and employees safe amid the storm. According to Newsweek, these Texas school districts remained closed on Monday:

• Aldine ISD: “We urge staff and families to stay safe and prepare for the incoming weather event, and to exercise extreme caution while traveling on the roadways,” the district said in a statement.
• Alief ISD
• Brazosport ISD
• Clear Creek ISD
• Cleveland ISD: “Out of an abundance of caution due to the forecasted weather conditions for the greater Houston area, all Cleveland ISD campuses and facilities will be CLOSED on Monday, July 8th,” the district said in a statement. “This includes all summer activities, training, workshops and professional development events.”
• Conroe ISD
• Crosby ISD
• Cy-Fair ISD
• Dickinson ISD
• Fort Bend ISD
• Friendswood ISD
• Galena Park ISD
• Galveston ISD
• Hitchcock ISD
• Houston ISD
• Humble ISD
• Katy ISD
• Lamar Consolidated ISD
• Montgomery ISD
• Pearland ISD
• Royal ISD
• Santa Fe ISD
• Spring ISD
• Spring Branch ISD
• Texas City ISD
• Tomball ISD
• Waller ISD

More from DA: Marlin ISD was failing. Now this superintendent is changing trajectories

Beryl’s damaging impact

So far, the storm has cut power for more than 1.5 million customers in the Houston area alone, energy company CenterPoint Energy reports. At least 11 people died as it barreled through parts of the Caribbean last week, The Washington Post reports.

According to the National Hurricane Center, Beryl remained a Category 1 hurricane with sustained winds of 75 mph as it reached Houston. The city has also received three to six inches of rain while expecting another two to four, according to the National Weather Service.

“Steady to rapid weakening” is anticipated as the hurricane’s center moves inland, the Hurricane Center reported. It’s expected to weaken as a tropical storm later Monday and will likely become a tropical depression on Tuesday.

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That’s according to a recent survey of 1,000 parents by Lingokids, a learning app. The researchers sought to understand how much screen time kids get over the summer and for what purpose.

Despite the low age range of the kids sampled, one might consider their screen time pretty significant. Nearly 62% of children spend more than one hour daily on a device. Another 32% spend more than two hours in front of a screen each day, according to parents surveyed.

However, not every kid’s screen time is wasted on what some parents would consider “brain rot.” In fact, 60% of parents believe that their children consider education screen time fun and playful, and 56% say educational apps help prevent the “summer slide” associated with the extended time away from school.

Parents were also asked how they leverage technology and other methods to mitigate learning loss over the break. Here’s what they said:

• By letting them use/play educational apps and games (55.66%)
• Teaching them at home (44.93%)
• Educational camps (33.49%)
• TV shows/movies (31.23%)
• Summer school (30.87%)
• I don’t worry about my child/ren experiencing “the summer slide” (15.49%)

“We know that reading, math and other academic skills can see slippage when school is out of session for the summer break, while parent involvement is important, interactive learning apps may be effective in moderating summer learning loss by sustaining practice in core areas like English and STEM,” Chair of the Lingokids Advisory Board Suzanne Barchers said in a statement.

Parents also broke down the content their child engages with on their devices. Educational apps (66.15%) emerged as the most common content type, followed by:

• Games apps (those with no learning objectives (54.83%)
• Video streaming apps (46.48%)
• Communication apps (37.54%)
• Social media (36.11%)
• Music apps (32.66%)

DA coverage

For a more in-depth look at how kids are spending their summers on their devices, click here. Or, check out District Administration’s recent coverage on student achievement and well-being below:

• Marlin ISD was failing. Now this superintendent is changing trajectories
• Student report card: What kids think of their schools
• Reversing pandemic slides: How does your state compare?

The post 4 ways tech is helping kids avoid summer learning slides appeared first on District Administration.

So what should your AI guidelines look like? New Jersey recently released resources to help schools harness AI for teaching and learning. Let’s take a look:

Learning resources

Hosted on the state Department of Education’s Office of Innovation website, the guidelines offer several resources ranging from webinars surrounding the “considerations for artificial intelligence in education” to free documents from national organizations like Common Sense Education, which has published a wealth of use cases for AI in the classroom.

The New Jersey Department of Education also participates in the Teach AI initiative, a consortium of state education departments and international education agencies that work together to create frameworks for AI policy and teaching resources.

“AI is a transformative technology that will open new opportunities for teaching and learning,” Acting Commissioner of Education Kevin Dehmer said in a statement. “Our goal is to ensure students have the knowledge and skills in working with AI to help prepare them for success in the classroom and beyond graduation.”

More from DA: Teaching apprenticeships: Here are 3 models that work

The state’s guidelines also include several resources to help educators learn how to teach about AI and some free AI tools they can experiment with. Here are some examples:

Teaching about AI

• The TeachAI website offers best practice guidelines for policymakers, education leaders, teachers and parents.
• The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) published The Hands-On AI Projects for the Classroom guides for elementary, secondary, elective and computer science teachers.
• Explore a wide range of learning units for K12 AI literacy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s RAISE initiative.

Free AI tools

• Google’s Quick Draw Application and Quick Draw Dataset Explorer (recognizes drawings using AI).
• Stable Diffusion (a text-to-image generator).
• ChatGPT 3.5 (OpenAI’s generative AI chatbot that responds to user-generated prompts).

Moving forward, New Jersey’s Office of Innovation will gather feedback from educators to learn how AI is being used in the classroom, which will help inform policy implementation in the future, according to a press release from the NJ Department of Education. Click here to take a deeper look at the state’s AI guidance.

DA’s AI coverage

We’ve also published numerous articles that dive into research about AI and how your peers are using the technology to meet their community’s needs. You can find some of those articles below:

• Why this tech director isn’t racing to adopt AI
• Want to teach AI literacy? Here are 5 new strategies

• AI magnet school: Why this superintendent is launching one

  

The post What do effective AI guidelines look like? Check out this new approach appeared first on District Administration.

Last month, middle school students from the Brigantine Public School District in New Jersey were given the learning experience of a lifetime. Students saw what looked like an older gentleman on a projector screen interacting with them on a Zoom call. They didn’t know that the man they were speaking with, Edward Mosberg, died in September 2022.

Thankfully, Mosberg’s ability to tell his story lives on. He is one of several Holocaust survivors whose stories have been captured through interviews and documentation and transformed into “interactive biographies” by the USC Shoah Foundation. Below you’ll find a “60 Minutes” report detailing the process behind creating the technology:

Bringing history to life

Stockton University’s Sara and Sam Schoffer Holocaust Resource Center became one of the first organizations in the world to host the first generation of interactive Holocaust testimonies. This allowed Brigantine Public Schools students to learn about the Holocaust like no other children had before.

Irvin Moreno-Rodriguez, director of the Sara and Sam Schoffer Holocaust Resource Center at Stockton University, says the relationship between humans and technology is becoming more intimate at a time when there is a decreasing number of Holocaust survivors left to tell their story—in person.

“When we look to the future with technologies like the interactive biography of a Holocaust survivor, students will be more engaged because they have the ability to ask questions and in real time receive an answer,” he says.

More from DA: Teaching apprenticeships: Here are 3 models that work

Such innovation is key to creating that spark and curiosity for learning, he adds. There’s no such thing as a dumb question when interacting with the interactive videos because a genuine response is guaranteed. When the students finally learned that the man they were speaking to was no longer alive, they began to think more critically about their questions.

“In the last question, a student asked, ‘Why did you record your testimony?'” says Moreno-Rodriguez. “No one’s ever asked that question before.”

‘I thought he was actually there’

Brigantine’s middle school students were particularly interested in Mosberg’s experiences and his family. “Most of his responses were emotional,” says 8th-grader Addison Goodman. “It was hard to understand what he was saying sometimes. Overall, I thought it was a really cool experience.”

“Anything that was about his family, he seemed pretty traumatized,” added 7th-grader Sierra Fische. And 8th-grader Annabella Casamento contended they weren’t simply talking to a hologram. “You could see his emotions,” she noted.

Superintendent Glenn Robbins says he was just as surprised. When the head representative of the Temple Beth Sholom reached out to him asking if they’d be interested in hosting a Holocaust assembly, he figured it’d be your typical presentation.

“We had no clue what we were in store for,” he says.

Goodman reflected that she prefers an experience like this over any history book. “I feel like I would much rather have an assembly or something like that rather than reading it in a magazine or a book,” she says. “You get to ask your own questions and find out more.”

The students agreed with Moreno-Rodriguez that their peers were much more comfortable asking questions because they were interacting with technology rather than a real person. “I notice when people come to assemblies, we’re more hesitant to ask,” says Goodman. “We had a little more freedom.”

The post Deeper learning: How tech brought this Holocaust survivor to back life appeared first on District Administration.

Pandemic relief spending

Two new research studies released this week give us an idea of the effectiveness of ESSER spending by K12 schools. Each study contends that pandemic relief funds kept schools afloat and made some academic gains.

The first study, which was a collaboration between Harvard’s Center for Education Policy Research and Stanford’s Opportunity Project, reveals that every $1,000 of federal relief spent per student during the 2022-23 school year resulted in a 3% increase in math scores compared to a typical school year, or about six school days of learning.

As far as reading scores go, improvements weren’t as significant. The data suggests the same amount of spending only bought the gains equivalent to an extra three school days of learning.

“It led to significant improvements in children’s academic performance… It wasn’t enough money, or enough recovery, to get students all the way back to where they were in 2019, but it did make a significant difference,” Sean Reardon, professor of poverty and inequality in education at Stanford and project leader of the research,  told NPR.

The second study, which comes from the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research, paints a similar picture. For every $1,000 increase in ESSER per pupil funds there were “statistically significant increases” in math scores but negligible impact in ELA.

“To recover losses remaining after 2023, we estimate schools would need to spend $9,000 to $13,000 per pupil,” the authors suggest.

Trump vs. vaccines

In other news, former President Donald Trump is vowing to cut federal education investments. Last week, he told his followers in Wisconsin that he “will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate,” MSNBC reports. He echoed this sentiment again this past weekend.

During a rally at Temple University on Saturday, he vowed to move the Department of Education “to the states,” The Washington Examiner reports.

“We’ll be able to cut [spending on] education in half and get much better education in some of the states,” Trump said. “We’ll have the best education anywhere in the world.”

He also mentioned that the United States spends more “per pupil” than any other country, yet he notes that the U.S. ranks poorly in education. So, “What the hell do you have to lose?” he asked.

Trump: I will cut education in half pic.twitter.com/YtAD0QMH4F

— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) June 22, 2024

New AI tools from Google

The last tidbit of information I’ll throw your way comes from Google. This week, they’ve announced new updates to their AI tools for students. Gemini, for instance, is now available for teens’ school accounts to help them learn “responsibly and confidently in an AI-first future,” the announcement reads.

Gemini will guide students with in-the-moment assistance, practice materials and real-time feedback. Furthermore, Google is adding extra data protection to Gemini, promising not to use data from chats to improve AI models,” the company adds.

“In the coming months, we’re making Gemini available to teen students that meet our minimum age requirements while using their Google Workspace for Education accounts in English in over 100 countries around the world, free of charge for all education institutions.”

More from DA: Fighting false information? 8 ways to better spread the truth

Additionally, Google announced several resources and trainings for students, parents and educators to learn more about generative AI and how to use it responsibly and effectively:

New from DA

As always, here’s what’s new from District Administration this week:

• “Talking Out of School” podcast: Paper CEO Phil Cutler shares insights from Leadership Voices, a series of interviews with superintendents covering artificial intelligence, personalized learning, staffing challenges and the other issues that are top of mind.
• EdTech Top 40: Read our coverage of LearnPlatform by Instructure’s 2024 list of the top 40 edtech tools. This year’s list reflects the importance of uniqueness and interoperability in education.
• Teaching apprenticeships: We know the importance of building a strong teacher pipeline. In this article, I share three innovative teaching apprenticeships that blend K12 with higher education to prepare the next generation of students.

The post TGIF time-saver: How to gauge ESSER’s academic impact appeared first on District Administration.

The Pathways Alliance, a coalition of K12 and higher education organizations dedicated to supporting diverse and inclusive educator preparation pipelines, recently shared a comprehensive list of 14 teacher apprenticeship programs along with explanations and insight into each initiative. We’ve selected three examples to share with you, but you can click here to view the complete report.

Ector County ISD

Texas’ Ector Couty ISD recently approved its Registered Apprenticeship Program for Teachers, the latest “transformative step” designed to meet the rural school districts’ needs. Apprentices work with experienced educators for an extended period to gain essential skills.

One of the most crucial pieces to this initiative is the financial support it offers. Apprentices’ full tuition and fees are covered, allowing them to earn a bachelor’s degree without the financial burden. Additionally, they receive a paycheck while gaining experience with the district.

“This initiative not only elevates the standard of teacher training but also represents a significant advancement in ECISD’s ongoing efforts to recruit, retain and reward top-quality educators,” the document reads.

Missouri State University

This university is home to the Pathways for Paraprofessionals Registered Apprenticeship Program, a unique opportunity tailored to special education. The program prioritizes practical experience, mentorship and a thorough understanding of special education practices.

Most notably, the program promises flexibility, allowing paraprofessionals to enroll in entirely online classes. Participants can also complete part of their coursework at no tuition through collaboration with school districts.

More from DA: Fighting false information? 8 ways to better spread the truth

Dakota State University

The Teacher Apprenticeship Pathway helps tackle teacher shortages by giving paraprofessionals a pathway to earn their teaching certifications. It’s supported by the state’s Department of Education and the Department of Labor and Regulation.

During their apprenticeship, participants continue their work as paraprofessionals. They do not serve as teachers of record, allowing them to receive adequate support and mentoring while obtaining practical experience.

Paraprofessionals can also earn stackable apprenticeship degrees. The program is structured to provide:

• A bachelor’s degree in elementary, special or secondary education over two years.
• Virtual coursework at convenient times.
• Mentorship from experienced teachers and university advisors.

“This model helps retain talent within the community and ensures apprentices receive practical guidance from seasoned professionals,” the report asserts.

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