Last month, a pair of Apple shareholders demanded in an open letter that the company address growing concerns about children’s addiction to their products. In light of research on the detrimental effects of electronic-media use, investment firm JANA Partners and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System argued, parents need better resources to make sure children are using devices “in an optimal manner.” While Apple defended its parental controls and protections for children, the letter was proof that more people are starting to realize what many in the scientific community have been saying for years: Overuse of screen-based technology is bad for children’s health.
Modern technology is powerfully addictive, especially for the young, developing mind. With teenagers ages 13-18 averaging almost nine hours of entertainment media use a day—that doesn’t include homework or other media use in school—it’s no wonder many parents are starting to notice. (Even two of technology’s most prominent creators, Bill Gates and the late Steve Jobs, famously admitted in interviews that they limited their own children’s screen use.) Psychologists and neuroscientists have shown correlations (and in many cases, causation) between overusing technology and lower grades, trouble sleeping, inability to focus, poor self image, and depression and anxiety. Some research even shows a decrease in gray matter—the brain tissue responsible for sensory perception, memory, emotion, and self-control—in a technology addict’s cerebral cortex.
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At a certain moment last year, an uncomfortable silence took hold in my classroom. Lauren had volunteered to read the part of Mama during a reading of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun. Lauren was an excellent student: She was kind, insightful, a frequent participant in class discussions, and a remarkably hard worker. That day though, her mind was elsewhere.
In perfect silence, her classmates stared at me with faces that anticipated how I would respond to Lauren’s missed cue. I looked in her direction, waiting for some acknowledgement on her part before breaking the silence. Eventually, she caught on. “Oh, God,” she said, re-orienting herself. “I’m so sorry.” Her classmates giggled and sighed, as she put aside her iPhone and struggled for some time to find her place in the paperback. We weren’t able to finish the scene before the bell rang.
Of all the individual struggles I had with students and their smartphones over the past few years, this one got to me most. This wasn’t a case of a student being disengaged or bored—she had volunteered to read, after all—yet, Lauren’s impulse to check her Twitter account was strong enough that she was willing to risk stalling the entire class’ progress to satisfy it. Surely, I told myself, the smartphone issue was more complex than I wanted to believe.
Indeed, the numbers are staggering: According to Common Sense Media’s 2015 Census, on any given day the average American teenager consumes just under nine hours of entertainment media, excluding time spent in school or for homework. This raises the question: Where can learning fit in?
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THE CHRONICLE — WASHINGTON (NNS) — The Navy joins the nation in celebrating the history of African American Sailors and civilians during African American/Black History Month, Feb. 1-28.
This year’s theme is “African Americans in Times of War,” which recognizes the contributions African Americans have made to the nation during times of war from the Revolutionary War to present-day conflicts.
ALNAV 007/18 encourages commands to participate in heritage celebrations and special observances throughout the year that honor the contributions, unique histories and cultures Navy’s diverse Sailor and civilian team.
This month’s observance has its origins in 1915 when historian and author Dr. Carter G. Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. Dr. Woodson and the association initiated the first Negro History Week in February 1926. Every U.S. president has officially designated the month of February as National African American/Black History Month since 1976.
“We should celebrate our unique backgrounds because each Sailor brings something different to the fight and this makes us a stronger, more lethal team,” said Rear Adm. John Fuller, commander of the Carl Vinson Strike Group and one of Navy’s African American flag officers. The strike group is currently deployed to the Western Pacific.
African American Sailors and civilians play an integral role in the success of the Navy as part of the One Navy Team. African Americans serve in every rank from seaman to admiral and perform duties in nearly every rating in the Navy. Currently, African Americans make up 17 percent of all Navy personnel, or roughly 64,000 Sailors. This includes more than 58,000 enlisted and 5,000 officers. Further analysis shows 17 percent of E-8 and E-9 Sailors are African Americans that hold a range of leadership positions. Nearly four percent of flag officers are African American Sailors.
A breakdown by gender indicates there are currently over 45,000 African American males and more than 18,000 African American females currently serving in the Navy.
“Those serving today owe our success to the veterans who transformed our Navy into a more diverse force,” said Fuller.
According to the September 2016 “One Navy Team” memo from Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John M. Richardson, actively being inclusive and open to diverse perspectives will produce leaders and teams who learn and adapt to achieve maximum possible performance, and who achieve and maintain high standards, be ready for decisive operations and combat.
Diversity also influences various thoughts, ideas, skill sets, and experiences which ultimately helps increase the effectiveness of the Navy. Integrating Sailors and civilians from diverse backgrounds enables the Navy to recruit and retain the nation’s top talent from a wide pool of skilled personnel.
The Navy supports minority youth development and encourages the pursuit of careers in science and industry through science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programs. The Navy also partners with organizations including the National Naval Officers Association, the National Society of Black Engineers, and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) in support of African American service members and civilians.
A complete educational presentation, including a downloadable educational poster on African American/Black History month, can be requested from the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI) by email at deomipa@us.af.mil.
THE CHICAGO CRUSADER — Did you know that there are 400,000 black men who have master’s degrees? I didn’t think so. That was just one of the many things I learned at a book signing and discussion of the newly released Guide for White Women Who Teach Black Boys.
Organized by RIISE, or Resources in Independent School Education founded and led by Gina Parker Collins, the event brought together independent school parents as well as educators and administrators to hear and participate in a powerful discussion.
Unfortunately, most of the narrative around black men is deficit focused, and the stereotype is what many believe.
School districts: Interested in having your local, state, and federal funding follow children, so that kids with greater need have more money attached to them? Now’s your chance.
The U.S. Department of Education is officially opening up the “Weighted Student Funding Pilot” in the Every Student Succeeds Act. The department can allow up to 50 districts to participate initially, and ESSA leaves open the possibility of opening that up to more districts down the line.
So what’s the weighted student funding pilot? Participating districts can combine federal, state, and local dollars into a single funding stream tied to individual students. English-language learners, kids in poverty, students in special education—who cost more to educate—would carry with them more money than other students. Some districts, including Denver, are already using this type of formula with state and local dollars.
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is pretty excited about the pilot.
“This is a great opportunity for local district leaders to put students first,” she said in a statement. “Instead of relying on complex federal rules to allocate funds, local leaders can use this flexibility to match funds—local, State or Federal—to the needs of students.”
Read the full story here: May require an Education Week subscription.
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, made a bold statement in a recent essay: By giving students individual help, average students can be turned into exceptional ones.
“If a student is at the 50th percentile in their class and they receive effective one-on-one tutoring, they jump on average to the 98th percentile,” Zuckerberg wrote.
It’s a remarkable claim, one that strains the limits of belief. And for good reason: The results from the 1984 study underlying it have essentially never been seen in modern research on public schools.
Still, the results have become a popular talking point among those promoting the “personalized learning” approach that Zuckerberg’s philanthropy is advancing. One video created by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) features an illustration of a 50 on a graph zooming upward to hit 98. The New Schools Venture Fund, another influential education group that backs personalized learning, cites the same work by Benjamin Bloom.
But a close look at the study raises questions about its relevance to modern education debates and the ability of new buzzed-about programs to achieve remotely similar results.
Washington — U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos today announced new flexibility for school districts to create equitable, student-centered funding systems under a pilot program authorized by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).
“This is a great opportunity for local district leaders to put students first,” said Secretary DeVos. “Instead of relying on complex federal rules to allocate funds, local leaders can use this flexibility to match funds—local, State or Federal—to the needs of students.”
The flexibility will allow school districts to combine eligible Federal funds with State and local funds in order to allocate resources to schools based on the number of students and the corresponding level of need. This type of system, often called “student-centered funding” or “weighted student funding”, is widely considered to be a modern, transparent and quantifiable way to allocate resources to the students most in need.
Previously, inflexible rules guiding the allocation and use of Federal funds made it difficult for school districts to create student-centered funding systems using Federal, State and local funds. School districts awarded flexibility will be relieved from Federal funding rules that would otherwise prevent them from implementing a student-centered funding system. ESSA provides for up to fifty school districts to receive the flexibility during the first three years of the program.
School districts that receive the flexibility are expected to design and implement a student-centered funding system that meets all statutory requirements of the pilot program, including the use of weights that allocate substantially more funding to students from low-income families, to English learners and to any other educationally disadvantaged student group identified by the school district.
School districts that receive the flexibility must also provide an assurance that parents, teachers, school leaders and other relevant stakeholders are consulted in the development and implementation of the student-centered funding system.
The application will open on February 7, 2018. For applicants intending to use the flexibility during the 2018-2019 school year, the application is due by March 12, 2018. For applicants intending to use the flexibility during the 2019-2020 school year, the application is due by July 15, 2018.
All local educational agencies (LEAs) are eligible to apply. The Department is authorized to award flexibility to 50 LEAs.
2. How do you apply?
The application will be available for download from the Department of Education website beginning February 7, 2018. Completed applications can be submitted to weightedfundingpilot@ed.gov.
3. What is being awarded?
The program will award flexibility only. It does not include a financial award.
4. When is the application due?
For LEAs that indicate on their application that they plan to use the flexibility during the upcoming 2018-2019 school year, the application is due by March 12, 2018. For LEAs that indicate they plan to use the flexibility during the 2019-2020 school year, the application is due by July 15, 2018.
For LEAs that will not use the flexibility until the 2019-2020 school year, the time between award and use may be used for planning.
5. When will the flexibility be awarded?
The Department intends to award the flexibility on a rolling basis, with those LEAs that apply to use the flexibility during the 2018-2019 school year receiving the earliest award notices.
Please consult Title I, Part E, Section 1501 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) for all applicable statutory requirements for participation in the program.
“We need to question everything; to look for ways in which we can improve, and embrace the imperative of change. At the end of the day, success shouldn’t be measured by how much ivy is on the wall,” said U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. “It should be determined by how you’re educating and preparing students for today’s and tomorrow’s challenges.”
Setting this tone of innovation, Secretary DeVos welcomed over 20 education leaders from across the nation to the Education Innovation Summit on Higher Education, held recently at the U.S. Department of Education’s headquarters in Washington. The agenda included general discussion as well as several featured presentations.
Anant Agarwal, CEO of Boston-based edX, said that our society needs a system where universities and educators can work with learners throughout their careers, not just during the traditional college ages of 18 to 22.
Ben Nelson of the for-profit Minerva Project asked the group to consider what the purpose of higher education is. He submitted that today businesses across various fields want the same thing: employees who have a core skill but can also have the well-rounded education to learn skills in new areas.
Kathleen Plinske of Valencia College in Central Florida recommended simplification of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid for students with the greatest financial need and recommended that short-term training programs that have already been vetted and approved by another federal agency be eligible for U.S. Department of Education Title IV funding.
Jerry Davis, president of the College of the Ozarks in Missouri, said that his college is a work college. That is, all students are required to work at jobs, leading to the school’s nickname of “Hard Work U.” The school has a student-focused environment where the students’ personal needs are regularly met. For example, one student’s father was in the penitentiary, and the student’s mother had died. The college’s Helping Hand Fund paid $3,000 for the funeral costs of the student’s mother. The student went on to graduate and today is a teacher. “From my own family experience and in work colleges for over 40 years,” Davis said, “I can tell you that not everything can be solved with a computer. Sometimes it takes a personal touch to make sure students don’t fall through the cracks in our society.”
Mike Zeliff, dean of faculty and students at the Jack Welch Management Institute, said, “We treat our students like customers and rely on their willingness to recommend our program and our professors as a key performance measure. The curriculum is designed to learn it today, apply it tomorrow, and return to the classroom to talk about their observations.”
At the end of the nearly four-hour summit, Secretary DeVos thanked the participants for creatively meeting the needs of the students that they serve. “I welcome your continued input to me and to the department on ways that the federal government can get out of the way on some of the things we need to get out of the way of,” she said. “And tell us the ways we can support meaningfully the things you are doing to serve students.”
Joe Barison is a public affairs specialist in the Office of Communications and Outreach
Here we go again: President Donald Trump and Congress were unable to reach agreement on temporary spending plan to keep the government open. So the U.S. Department of Education and other government agencies are on a partial shutdown, as of midnight Friday night. This is the first time this has happened in four years.
Lawmakers will keep trying to hammer out a deal. But in the meantime, the department’s headquarters at 400 Maryland Ave. will be a much quieter place than usual, but most school districts aren’t going to be immediately affected if this turns out to be a short-term shutdown. A longer-term shutdown, however, could cause more headaches. Head Start, the federal preschool program, and Impact Aid to districts with a federal presence in their backyard will likely feel the pinch first. (See below for more).
Below are the answers to some frequently asked questions about what happens now:
How many people will still report to work at the Education Department? A lot fewer than usual. More than 90 percent of the department’s nearly 4,000 employees will be furloughed for the first week of the shutdown. Of course, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and her top aides still come in. If the shutdown goes on for more than a week, more employees could return on a temporary basis, but it would not be more than 6 percent of the department’s staff.
Read the full article here: May require an Education Week subscription.
Associate Editor Christina Samuels contributed to this post.
Advocates for children in foster care had good reason to cheer the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act two years ago. The new law requires schools to break out student achievement data for foster care students so that the public can see how they are doing relative to their peers.
And it calls for students in foster care to be able to stay in their “school of origin” (a term the law did not define) even if it’s no longer their neighborhood school. The state must work with school districts and local child welfare agencies to provide transportation. The transportation was supposed to be in place one year after the passage of ESSA.
Commentary By Donald Coburn
By Robin White Goode, blackenterprise.com
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