The Trump administration’s budget, due out later this month, is likely to combine three significant research programs—the State Longitudinal Data System grants, the Regional Educational Laboratories, and the Comprehensive Centers—advocates with knowledge of the proposal say.
Money for all three programs—nearly $140 million all told—would instead be rolled out to states through formula grants, said Michele McLaughlin, a senior adviser at Penn Hill Group, a government-relations organization.
McLaughlin is also the president of the Knowledge Alliance, a lobbying coalition for the education research community, who learned of the proposal ahead of the budget’s release. Another advocate in the research community with knowledge of the details also confirmed the proposed changes.
“This proposal is nonsensical and does not reflect congressional intent,” said McLaughlin. She noted that the Education Sciences Reform Act, or ESRA, which was last renewed in 2002, keeps all three programs separate. So does a bipartisan bill to reauthorize ESRA—the Strengthening Education Through Research Act—which passed the House in 2014 and the Senate in 2015 but still hasn’t made it over the finish line.
The budget change the Trump administration intends to propose would require a legislative change, she said.
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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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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.”
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I’ve now been doing the Education Week RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings for about a decade, striving to recognize scholars who do academically significant research while also contributing to the public square. After all, I’ve long argued that on an issue like education, our impassioned public debates benefit when scholars take the time to engage. Of course, encouraging this kind of activity always runs the risk of introducing perverse incentives.
As I’ve written each year for most of the past decade, I have addressed two common questions while unveiling the rankings: Can somebody game this rubric? And are you concerned that this exercise will encourage academics to chase publicity?
In years past, I’ve dismissed these worries, noting that if scholars were motivated to write more relevant articles, pen more popular books, or communicate more accessibly, that would be great. And, while there’s obviously a point where communication turns into sleazy self-promotion, most academics were so far from that point that I wasn’t unduly concerned…
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In this special collection of Commentary essays, Frederick M. Hess and four education scholars discuss the pros and cons for academics who want to wade into public debate.
Democratic lawmakers want to know how Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos will work to stop bullying, harassment, and discrimination in public schools.
In a Wednesday letter, nine senators, including Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the top Democrat on the Senate education committee, asked the secretary what resources the U.S. Department of Education was providing schools in order to counter “the recent increase in hateful and discriminatory speech and conduct.” They also asked for the number of ongoing investigations by the department into student-on-student harrassment based on things like race, religion, and sexual orientation, as well as whether the federal task force on bullying prevention initiated by President Barack Obama in 2010 would continue on DeVos’ watch.
The senators also took a potshot at DeVos’ boss, President Donald Trump, arguing that his remarks on Twitter have “normalized” homophobia, misogyny, and other forms of discrimination, and that his words have negatively impacted students. And they cite recent incidents in schools, from swastikas drawn in schools to Latino students blocked from entering class by a human chain of other students, to buttress their concerns.
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Disability advocates hailed the U.S. Department of Education’s finding that Texas for years put roadblocks in the path of children who potentially qualified for special education—a clear violation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
“It shows that they are willing to stand up when a state is clearly not doing what’s right,” said Robbi Cooper, a leader of the parent advocacy group Decoding Dyslexia Texas and the mother of a son with dyslexia. “Now let’s just hope that we can get the policies right.”
The Jan. 11 monitoring report from the office of special education services—the first to be issued under the leadership of U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos—outlines a series of IDEA violations by the state.
In conversations with Texas parents and educators, federal officials heard conflicting reports about how children with dyslexia should be screened and served. Children who struggled in school were shifted to response-to-intervention programs that were supposed to meet their needs, but, once there, some languished for years, the monitoring report said…
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As most readers know, I live in Texas. My elected representatives are quite conservative on issues related to federal involvement in education.
Their point of view is grounded in the U.S. Constitution, which places control over education firmly in the hands of states. It also finds expression in the bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which reversed what many saw as the No Child Left Behind Act’s efforts to assert federal control over everything in K-12 education, from school accountability measures to definitions of highly qualified teachers.
However, elected representatives on both sides of the aisle recognize that the federal government can and should help improve K-12 education by providing funding to ensure that all students receive an appropriate education.
Title IIA, a program that supports educator recruitment, training, mentoring, and induction via poverty-weighted formula grants, represents one serious effort by the federal government to ensure that every student has access to well-trained teachers every day. All of us at Learning Forward believe that Title IIA’s annual investment in teachers is vital, and we are working hard to make sure that Congress and the Administration understand this program’s value and support funding it adequately. From my perspective, proposals to deeply cut or eliminate Title IIA, which Congress is currently mulling, would be devastating.
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Editor’s Note: This Commentary is part of a special report exploring game-changing trends and innovations that have the potential to shake up the schoolhouse.
Read the full report:10 Big Ideas in Education.
My career has been motivated by two questions: What underlies opportunity gaps in educational outcomes? And how can we use empirical insights to help close them?
My first attempt to use scientific evidence to improve educational practice was with a team of management consultants who were working with a charter-management organization to reduce class sizes from 25 to 23 students in secondary schools. I shared with them the landmark Tennessee STAR (Student Teacher Achievement Ratio) study, which found that class-size reductions improved academic outcomes for younger children but only when class sizes were reduced to between 13 and 17 students. The team quickly changed course in response.
About the Author
Lisa Quay is the executive director of Mindset Scholars Network. Based in Los Angeles, she previously worked at the Stupski Foundation, Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy at the Berkeley School of Law, and the Bridgespan Group.
How easy, my 23-year-old self thought. All you have to do is put up a slide with facts, and people will change their behavior! I learned quickly, however, that “facts” are never straightforward, and data alone are never enough.
My understanding of this disconnect between research and practice has deepened in my work with Carol Dweck and Angela Duckworth and the 26 other leading scientists studying individual and structural factors that shape achievement motivation as part of the Mindset Scholars Network…
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Editor’s Note: This Commentary is part of a special report exploring game-changing trends and innovations that have the potential to shake up the schoolhouse.
Read the full report:10 Big Ideas in Education.
I have spent many years working in education as a teacher and social worker, and it is clear that schools are no longer just a learning environment for young people. As the number of students affected by homelessness or living at or below the poverty level continues to increase, the demand for services for those affected also increases. Schools have become sanctuaries that provide food, warmth, and support, with a little education thrown in. The reality is that learning takes a back seat for a child whose basic needs are not met.
Shining a light on youth homelessness galvanizes districts to confront the prevalence of homelessness and begin creating solutions. Congress passed the McKinney-Vento Act more than 30 years ago, issuing landmark legislation that recognized a shared responsibility among community members to care for young people who live without safe and stable housing. And in 2012, the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness began a coordinated effort across federal agencies to end youth homelessness by 2020. Despite these efforts, homelessness continues to have a big impact on the academic and economic success of our students. Homelessness can contribute to students’ failing classes and affect their social-emotional well-being. For school districts, it can topple graduation rates.
About the Author
Kerry Wrenick is the state coordinator for homeless education at the Colorado Department of Education. Based in Denver, she was the president of the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth from June 2016 to October 2017.
It has been my challenge to find a better way to support these students to help them reach their full potential.
In 2015, I was the McKinney-Vento liaison for Kansas City Public Schools—which are located in the highest-poverty county in the state of Kansas. The community had nearly 1,200 identified homeless students and counting, and families were turning to our schools for help. But a lack of resources and funding to provide assistance compounded the problem. We couldn’t count on federal grant funds alone, which then rounded out to about $50 per student.
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The Trump administration’s budget, due out later this month, is likely to combine three significant research programs—the State Longitudinal Data System grants, the Regional Educational Laboratories, and the Comprehensive Centers—advocates with knowledge of the proposal say.
