Education Week - June 19, 2019 - 4

NEWS IN BRIEF
Analysis Indicates Millions of Students
Lack Home Internet to Do Homework

Mark Rogers/Odessa American via AP

Nearly 3 million students around the country face
struggles to keep up with their studies because they
must make do without home internet.
In classrooms, access to laptops and the internet
is nearly universal. But at home, the cost of internet
service and gaps in its availability create obstacles in
urban areas and rural communities alike.
In what has become known as the homework gap,
an estimated 17 percent of students do not have access to computers at home, and 18 percent do not
have home access to broadband internet, according
to an Associated Press analysis of census data.
School districts, local governments, and others
have tried to help. Some districts have installed
wireless internet on buses and loaned out hot spots.
Many communities have compiled lists of Wi-Fienabled restaurants and other businesses where
children are welcome to linger and do schoolwork.
The consequences can be dire because students
with home internet consistently score higher in reading, math, and science. Students without internet
at home are more likely to be those of color, from
low-income families, or in households with lower parental education levels.
-ASSOCIATED PRESS

New York State Recommends Schools
Test Flooring for Mercury Vapors
The state education department last week requested that all New York schools conduct an inventory of rubberlike floors and recommended testing
them for mercury, after three in Long Island shut
down this spring upon detecting mercury vapors.
In a letter to superintendents, nonpublic school
leaders, and charter school leaders, the state also
recommends that schools with that type of polyurethane flooring follow what's known as "Minnesota
guidance" to test the flooring for mercury.
The state has created links for districts and schools
to report their inventory. Once data are collected, the
education department, with the health department,
anticipates providing further guidance.
The education department's letter notes that floors
installed from the 1960s to 1990s are rubberlike and
water-resistant, usually one piece, and poured in
place. It also says that not every polyurethane floor
used mercury as a catalyst.
Health experts say that mercury vapors even at
low levels can accumulate in the body and eventually affect brain function, particularly in children.

Taking a Bite
From left, science
consultant Jett
"Sharky" Casas,
University of Texas
biology lecturer Irene
Perry, and John Paul
Rodriguez, 11, look for
89-million-year-old
fossilized remains in
ocean sediment found
near Midlothian,
Texas. Nimitz Middle
School in Odessa,
Texas, hosted the
Shark Finder program.

-TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE

Summer learning differences between low- and high-poverty schools may not contribute
much to students' long-term achievement gaps, finds a new analysis in Education Next.
Analyses of test data from a federal longitudinal study and the adaptive Measures of
Academic Progress show reading gaps stayed constant during both school years and
summers-findings that run counter to a landmark 1980s summer learning study.
230

● Low-poverty schools

200
190

● High-poverty schools

180
170

130

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

GRADES
SOURCE: Education Next

4 | EDUCATION WEEK | June 19, 2019 | www.edweek.org

5th

6th

SUMMER

140

SUMMER

150

SUMMER

160
SUMMER

READING SCORES

210

School officials in a Colorado community are
gauging support for demolishing Columbine High
School and rebuilding it nearby.
In a letter this month, Jefferson County schools
Superintendent Jason Glass says the school building has remained "a source of inspiration" for people
with a dark interest in the 1999 shootings that left
12 students and a teacher dead. In April, a Florida
teenager who authorities say was obsessed with the
shooting and may have been planning an attack in
Colorado just ahead of the 20th anniversary was
found dead in an apparent suicide.
The district also released an online survey to assess community support for a ballot measure earmarking $60 million to $70 million for a Columbine

Report Roundup

SUMMER LEARNING GAPS QUESTIONED

220

District Officials Consider Closing
And Rebuilding Columbine High

7th

8th

construction project.
Glass says the number of people trying to enter
the school or trespassing on its grounds reached record levels this year as the community marked the
20th anniversary of the massacre.
-AP

Indiana Educators Race to Renew
Teaching Licenses Before Deadline
Thousands of Indiana teachers are scrambling to
begin renewing their professional teaching licenses
before new rules that state lawmakers approved
this spring take effect July 1.
The pending renewal modification advanced quietly through the Indiana legislature, but it didn't
grab the attention of most teachers until the state
education department sent out guidance last month
on how to meet the new requirements, spurring
teachers to action.

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SCHOOL START TIMES
"Impact of Changing Middle and High School
Start Times on Sleep, Extracurricular Activities,
Homework, and Academic Engagement"
Pushing secondary school start times to let
adolescents catch a little more shut-eye may
improve students' engagement in school, indicates a new study in the journal Sleep.
Researchers used parent and student surveys to track more than 15,000 students in
grades 6-12 in the semesters before and after
their schools moved to later start times.
Under later start times, the percentage of
students getting recommended amounts of
sleep jumped: 44 percent of middle schoolers
got at least nine hours a night, up 6 percentage
points, and 58 percent of high school students
got at least eight hours of sleep nightly, up 31
percentage points. Moreover, the portion of
students who reported being too sleepy to complete their homework fell 11 percentage points

in middle school, to 35 percent, and fell from 71
percent to 56 percent among high school students.
- SARAH D. SPARKS
EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY
"Does Educational Technology Help Students
Learn?"
When it comes to a key international test,
there's little evidence that technology use benefits student scores and some evidence that it
could drag them down, according to a new report by the nonprofit Reboot Foundation.
The foundation, which is dedicated to improving students' critical-thinking skills, analyzed the Program for International Student
Assessment, which compares student outcomes
in different nations, and the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which is given
only in the United States.
It found education technology associated
with flat or lower scores on PISA and mixed

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Education Week - June 19, 2019

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