Education Week - March 8, 2023 - 2

Early-Literacy Skills
Of Students Appear
To Be on the Rebound
The academic stranglehold of the pandemic looks
like it may be loosening its grip.
New data from 43 states show that for the first time
since 2019-20, the majority of students in every grade
from K-3 are on track to tackle grade-level reading by
the end of the year-though no grade has yet matched
its pre-pandemic performance levels.
The new data from the curriculum and assessment
group Amplify also show that Black and Hispanic students
in many grades are improving faster than average,
shrinking the academic gaps that had widened
during school disruptions.
" It's not great news in the sense that it's not that
[Black and Hispanic students] are doing better than
they were before the pandemic, " said Paul Gazzerro,
the director of data analysis for Amplify. " But at least
we're not seeing this achievement gap continue to get
amplified, " he said.
" We know that there's been a lot of time and
effort, blood, sweat, and tears put into trying
to help these kids who are impacted as well as
kids that have come along later who are less impacted, "
Gazzerro said, " and it does seem like
some of those efforts are starting to pay off. "
Amplify researchers tracked the performance of more
than 300,000 students. They compared data from
midyear tests taken from 2018-19 through 2022-23.
The results are the latest evidence that elementary
students who started school during the pandemic
continue to recover academically. Still, many students
show holes in foundational skills that become evident
as they move to more advanced work.
For example, only 3rd graders, who were in kindergarten
at the start of 2020, showed no overall improvement
in the number of students on track for reading
since last year.
" My guess is that a lot of what's happening here
in the 2nd and 3rd grade data is that [students] really
missed working with sounds and understanding
how the discrete sounds of the language work, because
that would have come in kindergarten and 1st
[grades], " said Susan Lambert, Amplify's chief academic
officer.
While more students overall seem ready for gradelevel
reading, the data also suggest about a third of
students continue to read " far behind " where they
should be at this point in the school year.
Deferred
Maintenance
To'Hajiilee Community
School on the Navajo
Nation in New Mexico
is one of dozens of
Bureau of Indian
Education schools in
desperate need of
repair or replacement.
The federal agency
estimates the cost to
address the needs of
those schools at
$6.2 billion. The latest
federal budget
includes $90 million
for a new campus for
To'Hajiilee, which sits
in a floodplain.
What Motivates Teenagers to Do Better in School?
The Chance to Redo Assignments
This is not a meeting of the minds.
What teenagers say will motivate them the most in school-
and what educators think those things are-are a far cry from
each other.
So say the findings from separate surveys of teenagers and
educators conducted by the EdWeek Research Center on student
motivation and engagement.
At the top of teens' list is the opportunity to redo assignments
if they get a low grade. Out of more than 20 options
given to a nationally representative sample of 1,011 teenagers,
that opportunity was selected the most, with 35 percent
choosing it.
Incorporating more humor and fun into class, providing
more feedback, offering more hands-on experiences, and assigning
more schoolwork on topics that are relevant and interesting
rounded out the top five answers.
But ask educators-teachers, principals, and district leaders-what
they think they could do to better motivate students,
and you'll get very different answers.
The most-cited solution among educators surveyed in January
and February was offering more hands-on learning experiences.
Fifty-four percent of educators said providing more
field trips, lab experiments, maker spaces, and internships
was what they or teachers in their district or school could do
to help students feel more motivated to do their best.
The second-most selected response, from 45 percent of educators,
was showing students how they can use what they
learn in future careers. Rounding out the top three was " offer
a choice of different ways students can demonstrate they have
learned something, " selected by 44 percent of educators.
The surveys identified other discrepancies. For instance,
86 percent of students said they feel motivated to do their best
in school right now, but only 67 percent of educators said their
students were motivated.
There was one area of agreement: When asked to rate educators'
level of motivation, around 80 percent of both students
and educators said that teachers in their school or district were
motivated to do their best to teach students.
Employee Morale Is Keeping Superintendents Up
At Night, But They Feel More Successful Overall
It's the stuff of nightmares-staffing shortages, student misbehavior,
insufficient resources.
But uppermost in superintendents' minds these days are employee
morale and burnout, a new survey shows, even though
leaders generally feel more upbeat about their own careers.
Worries about employee well-being come as superintendents
identify staffing concerns as a key hurdle for accomplishing goals,
making retention of employees an even more urgent priority.
Those findings are from the 2023 Voice of the Superintendent
survey of 198 superintendents from 37 states, released last month
by EAB, an education consulting organization.
Years of disruption from the COVID-19 debates and divisive political
rhetoric about teachers and the role of public education have
made it more difficult for educators, said Georgeanne Warnock,
the superintendent of the Terrell, Texas, district.
And there's not a silver bullet for turning it all around, leaders
say.
" There's not one 100 percent solution, " Warnock said. " There
are 100 1 percent solutions. "
In the survey, district leaders were more likely to say they had
" moderate or major concern " about low morale and burnout of
special education staff, followed closely by teachers in general.
Leaders have tried various strategies to lift employee morale
and address systemic concerns-everything from using COVID19-relief
aid to pay for midyear retention bonuses to conducting
" stay interviews " to ask employees what they need to remain content
on the job.
Warnock has tried strategies of all sizes.
When her district struggled with a substitute teacher shortage,
she took turns covering classrooms and used her observations to
make improvements around the district.
This year, she surveyed staff and reviewed the findings in focus
groups. Drawing upon that feedback, the district plans to switch
to longer school days and four-day instructional weeks next year
with time for independent student learning on Fridays.
Despite the challenges, superintendents seem to have a more
positive outlook this year than they did in 2021-22, with 70 percent
saying they feel more successful today than a year ago.
BRIEFLY STATED CONTRIBUTORS: Associated Press, Evie Blad, Arianna Prothero, Sarah D. Sparks, and Tribune News Service. Edited by Karen Diegmueller.
2 | EDUCATION WEEK | March 8, 2023 | www.edweek.org
Susan Montoya Bryan/AP

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Education Week - March 8, 2023

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