For two decades, as part of repeated research studies, thousands of participants from diverse backgrounds have watched the same video of college students playing basketball in a circle. Participants are told to count how many times the students wearing white shirts pass the basketball. Stunningly, roughly half of the participants become so distracted trying to count the passes that they completely miss something extraordinary: a student dressed in gorilla suit who walks into the middle of the scene and thumps her chest before walking out of the frame nine seconds later.
In the world of neuroscience, this phenomenon of being oblivious to the obvious is called “inattentional blindness.” This occurs any time we as human beings fail to notice a fully visible but unexpected object because our attention was on another task, event, or activity.
Inattentional blindness is an important concept to keep in mind now that the 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress results for reading and mathematics for 4th and 8th grades have been released.
As many feared, results were extremely disappointing across the board. Nevertheless, there are already reams of analysis of certain subgroups highlighting the stubborn achievement gaps within the mesmerizing categories of students’ race and family income. For example, despite the fact that only 37 percent of all 4th graders were at or above “proficient”—further evidence that poor reading performance crossed all racial boundaries—the dominant reaction to the scores continues to focus on the black-white achievement gap…
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U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos hasn’t testified before the House or Senate education committees since becoming secretary more than a year ago—and Democrats aren’t happy about that.
For one thing, it’s a departure from the record of her recent predecessors, each of whom had appeared before the two education committees at least once—and in many cases, more often—by this point in their tenures. And even when you widen the lens to look at other committees on Capitol Hill, DeVos is still behind the pace of her predecessors.
All in all, DeVos has testified before Congress just four times so far, including her confirmation hearing in January of last year, and three education spending committee appearances.
That’s not to say DeVos is dodging lawmakers. The party in control of Congress—in this case, the GOP—gets to decide when a cabinet secretary appears before Congress. “Every time the Secretary has been called up to testify she has made herself available to do so,” said Elizabeth Hill, a spokeswoman for the department.
Still, top Democrats on the House and Senate education committees—Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia and Sen. Patty Murray of Washington—are not happy that they haven’t gotten a chance to hear from DeVos directly. They have big concerns about the way DeVos is implementing the Every Student Succeeds Act, her school choice agenda, and what they see as her rollback of Obama-era civil rights protections. They want to question her about those issues in person.
House Republicans say they fully intend to have DeVos speak to the committee, they’ve just run into scheduling conflicts.
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U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is approving plans that fly in the face of the Every Student Succeeds Act’s protections for vulnerable children, according to more than a dozen civil rights groups, including the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
The groups sent a letter Tuesday to Democratic and Republican leaders on the House and Senate education committees asking them to tell DeVos to stop approving “unlawful” plans.
“We call on you to fulfill your role in ESSA’s implementation and to correct the Department of Education’s flawed approval of state plans that do not comply core equity provisions of the law,” the groups wrote to Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., as well as Reps. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., and Bobby Scott, D-Va.
This is far from the first time that the civil rights community—and Democratic lawmakers—have questioned DeVos’ approach to plan approval. The Alliance for Excellent Education, one of the 17 groups that signed off on the letter, put together a legal brief questioning whether some of the plans that DeVos has approved meet ESSA’s requirements. And both Murray and Scott have written letters to DeVos saying she is flouting the law.
A long-awaited report on access to digital learning hit the newsstands this week with a familiar headline: a digital divide, known as the homework gap in education circles, persists, especially for students of color, students from low-income families, and students in rural areas.
Released by Institute of Education Sciences (IES), an arm of the National Center for Education Statistics, on April 4, 2018, Student Access to Digital Learning Resources Outside of the Classroom found large gaps in both connectivity and access depending on the racial and ethnic background, economic status, and location of a students’ family.
The report was required under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and was supposed to be released in June 2017. When the deadline was missed, the Alliance for Excellent Education joined the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) and 18 other organizations in a coalition letter calling for it to be released as soon as possible, given the critical information it reveals about home access to high-speed broadband internet, especially for historically underserved students.
Lack of Access in Rural Areas
According to the report, students in suburban areas had more access to fixed broadband at home, 84 percent, than did students in rural areas, 71 percent. Unsurprisingly, students in remote rural areas had less access to fixed broadband, at 65 percent, than their peers in other geographic areas.
Adding the lens race and ethnicity amplifies even larger gaps in access for students in these rural areas. Higher numbers of students of color in rural areas had either no internet access or only dial-up access (41 percent of African American students and 26 percent of Latino students), compared to their white (13 percent) and Asian (11 percent) peers.
Breakdown by Race and Ethnicity
Regardless of locale, students of color and students from low-income families had less internet access than their peers. As demonstrated by the figure below, there’s an 18-percentage-point gap in fixed broadband access between white students and their African American peers. A similar difference of 16 percentage points exists for Latino students and an even larger gap of 28 percentage points for American Indian/Alaska Native students when compared with their white peers.
The National School Boards Association is committed to helping ensure each and every student has, not just equal, but equitable opportunities and access to a high quality education. “Equity Matters” shines a spotlight on the importance of educational equity. “Equity Matters” was released at the National School Boards Association’s 2018 Annual Conference in San Antonio, TX.
Curious to explore where American education stands 35 years after the “A Nation at Risk” report that warned of dire consequences for the workforce if schools didn’t shape up? The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute has an event on April 12 in Washington, D.C., that will explore that question.
The Reagan Institute Summit on Education will feature seven former secretaries of education, including Bill Bennett, who served under President Ronald Reagan; Lamar Alexander, who served under President George H.W. Bush; Richard Riley, who served under President Bill Clinton; Margaret Spellings, and Rod Paige, who served under President George W. Bush; Arne Duncan and John King, who served under President Barack Obama.
Condoleezza Rice, who served as President George W. Bush’s secretary of state, and Janet Napolitano, who served as President Barack Obama’s Homeland Security Secretary, will also be speaking.
State chiefs will be there, too, including John White of Louisiana and Carey Wright of Mississippi. In addition, Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark, N.J., will attend…
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Following the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting, courageous and inspiring students around the country are demanding action, refusing to believe that we can do nothing to stem America’s gun violence epidemic. In stark contrast, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has responded with plans to chair a new task force on school safety that will, among other things, consider the wholly nonresponsive goal of repealing Obama-era discipline guidance.
The departments of Justice and Education, whose civil rights units we had the privilege to lead during the Obama administration, crafted the 2014 guidance documents that are now under attack. Intended to help schools serve students more effectively, the guidance explains long-standing federal law prohibiting racial discrimination in school discipline and concretely outlines how schools can satisfy this law while maintaining classroom peace. The guidance makes clear to school administrators and communities what the law is and how to apply it to treat all students fairly. In addition, the guidance provides practical resources to reduce disparities in exclusionary discipline and improve school climate, including a 50-state compendium of laws related to school discipline. A best practices document highlights alternatives to out-of-school disciplinary techniques that work to maintain classroom peace. The goal was simply to ensure that all children have a chance to learn and thrive.
The reality is, many American schools have a problem: separate and unequal discipline practices that discriminate on the basis of race. We know from careful investigations we oversaw at the departments of Justice and Education that children of color and those with disabilities often receive harsher disciplinary interventions than their white and nondisabled counterparts—for the same offenses. In one investigation, school staff could not identify nondiscriminatory reasons for racially different disciplinary treatment of students in more than a quarter of the files investigated…
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WASHINGTON — Hundreds of thousands marched in the nation’s capital and across the world to commemorate those killed by gun violence and to demand more effective gun control legislation.
[/media-credit] Thousands of demonstrators participate in the “March for Our Lives” rally in D.C. on March 24 to demand stricter gun control.
The march, titled March for Our Lives, was led by teenagers and survivors of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
To honor the 17 victims of the February shooting, one of the speakers read their names, “Alyssa Alhadeff, Scott Beigel, Nicholas Dworet, Jaime Guttenberg …” He saved the name of one student, Nicholas Dworet, for last because Saturday would have been his 18th birthday.
The crowd chanted “Never again,” and “Everyday shootings are everyday problems.”
People from across the nation traveled to Washington in support of the cause. One of them was Brianna Richardson, who came from Newtown, Conn., the site of the deadliest public school shooting in America. In 2012, Adam Lanza fatally shot 20 children between 6 and 7 years old, as well as six adult staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Richardson, whose father is the president of Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire Department, said the incident inspired her to become a nurse.
“I want to help people live happy healthy lives, so that one day we don’t have people who feel so sadly that they have to do these things,” she said. After the tragedy, Richardson began volunteering and pushing for change, as well.
Organizers estimate 800,000 people attended the march in Washington. Numerous celebrities, including Kanye West, Kim Kardashian, Jennifer Hudson, Arianna Grande, George Clooney, Common and Demi Lovato joined the demonstration.
Students and survivors of the Parkland shooting joined with students across the nation and celebrities to share their testimonies on the main stage. There was also a six-minute moment of silence for the time it took to kill the 17 victims at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
One of the speakers on the main stage was the granddaughter of civil rights icon Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
“I have a dream that enough is enough and that this should be a gun free world, period,” 9-year-old Yolanda Renee King said.
The crowd at the march was very emotional and many were teary-eyed at the remarks made by the speakers.
Amber Kelly, a teen mother, stood in the crowd with her son and expressed the worry she has for her son attending school.
Thousands of demonstrators participate in the “March for Our Lives” rally in D.C. on March 24 to demand stricter gun control.
“I’m more so scared for my son than myself,” Kelly said. “I don’t have the money to send my child to private school or homeschool him. How can I feel comfortable sending my son to school if I know there’s a possibility he could be shot?”
Helena Ristic, 24, is originally from Serbia. She said she decided to join the march to support the young people leading the event and to help end gun violence.
“I think this event shows that even though they’re kids, they can still make change,” Ristic said. “We all want gun violence to end.”
Lots of children were there with their parents. Many held signs and walked alongside their families.
Zachary Hill, 8, walked with his mom and two siblings and was excited he could be a part of this movement.
“I’m really happy we’re making a change for the future,” Hill said.
Aalayah Eastmond, a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting, urged people not to lose focus on the fact that most gun violence happens in black and Latino neighborhoods.
“It doesn’t only happen in schools,” Eastmond said. “It’s been happening in urban communities forever.”
Naomi Wadler, 11, also took to the main stage with a similar message, ensuring that people of color are not left out of the conversation.
“For far too long, these black girls and women have been just numbers,” said Wadler, a fifth grader who organized a walkout at her elementary school in Alexandria, Va., earlier this month.
“I urge everyone here and everyone who hears my voice to join me in telling the stories that aren’t told, to honor the girls, the women of color who are murdered at disproportionate rates in this nation.”
Shannon Douglas traveled four hours from Virginia Beach, Va., to participate in the demonstration.
“People aren’t taking this seriously,” Douglas said. “The Second Amendment was meant to protect your property and yourself. You don’t need an AK-47 or an SK to protect yourself. A simple handgun can do that.”
Douglas named two of the types of assault rifles protestors want banned. Supporters of gun control are also pushing for the ban of Bump stocks, an accessory that allows semi-automatic weapons to fire much more rapidly.
“We call BS” was another popular chant and the topic of the signs held by the
participants above.
Leaders of the march insisted that the event was a call to action, so volunteers lined the streets to register people to vote so they can elect government officials who will support stronger gun control and remove those who do not.
“Vote them out,” an activist pleaded to the crowd.
Three words describe Carol Stubbs’ experience at the recent NEA National Leadership Summit: “Energetic, exciting, and inspiring,” said the school custodian from Fayetteville, N.C., who serves as her local association president. “It makes me want to go home and do even more!”
More than 2,000 educators, ranging from future teachers to college professors, from school counselors to custodians, attended the three-day summit in Chicago from March 16-19. “You’re not here so we can make a leader out of you,” NEA President Lily Eskelsen García told the crowd. “There’s not anybody in this room who has not already demonstrated leadership.”
Summit attendees came to work on further developing the essential skills of union leaders, including advocacy, communication, and organizing skills. (Check out the six core competencies of NEA leadership development.) “What I’m learning is that my voice does matter, and I need to use it. I can’t sit back,” said California school counselor Erika Zamora. “Also, there is power in us doing this work together!”
The annual summit is the largest annual meeting of NEA educators, apart from the legislative NEA Representative Assembly, and it is an opportunity to “learn and to grow and to strengthen, and to gain a renewed sense of purpose and passion and perspective on how to lead more powerful and relevant associations,” NEA Vice President Becky Pringle told attendees. Powerful unions of educators are a necessity these days for public-school students to get what they need to succeed, she said…
U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is headed back to the Hill.
On Tuesday morning, DeVos will pitch the Trump administration’s fiscal 2019 budget plan for the Department of Education to the House appropriations subcommittee that oversees federal money for K-12. It’s a safe bet that DeVos’ public appearance before lawmakers will draw a crowd, given the hub-bub over her “60 Minutes” interview a week ago.
So what else can we expect besides the hot glare of the spotlight? Be sure to watch these three elements of the hearing:
1) Cuts Have Come Back
What’s changed between last year’s Trump budget request for education and this year’s? Aside from the total amount desired for the Education Department, not a ton. A lot was made last year about the Trump administration’s fiscal 2018 request to cut over $9 billion from the department, or about 13.5 percent. This year, the Trump team wants to cut 5 percent from DeVos’ department.
Like last year, the budget plan also proposes expanding school choice. This time around, there’s a $1 billion pot pitched for public and private school choice, although the divisions between those two aren’t as clear as they were in the fiscal 2018 budget. Like last year, DeVos also wants to eliminate both Title II, which covers professional development for educators, as well as Title IV, which covers a variety of programs like ed-tech, counseling services, and Advanced Placement course fees. Right now Title II gets about $2 billion, and Title IV gets $400 million…
Read the full article here: May require an Education Week subscription.
For two decades, as part of repeated research studies, thousands of participants from diverse backgrounds have watched the same video of college students playing basketball in a circle. Participants are told to count how many times the students wearing white shirts pass the basketball. Stunningly, roughly half of the participants become so distracted trying to count the passes that they completely miss something extraordinary: a student dressed in gorilla suit who walks into the middle of the scene and thumps her chest before walking out of the frame nine seconds later.
