Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eSchool News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

How are ELLs, students with disabilities IDed for gifted and talented?

States with formal policies around gifted and talented programs tend to identify more English learners and students with disabilities for those programs, according to a new study from NWEA, a not-for-profit research and educational services organization serving K-12 students.

The study uses data from the 2017-2018 Civil Rights Data Collection, the Stanford Education Data Archive, and the researchers’ own coding of individual states’ policies toward gifted and talented education.

A number of key themes emerged:…Read More

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How education data helps optimize hybrid learning

Schools worldwide face difficult choices as they try to balance student and staff safety with their educational mission during the pandemic. All-remote learning eliminates the risk of an outbreak at the school, but at-home education doesn’t provide the most productive learning environment for everyone, and it can put at-risk students at a disadvantage for a variety of reasons.

Schools and districts are making decisions about their approach by taking into account factors like virus prevalence in their area and student and family needs. An August 2020 McKinsey report notes that in the U.S., about 75 percent of the 50 largest districts started this school year on an all-remote basis. Others returned to all in-person learning, and some had to shut down again due to outbreaks.

Some districts have adopted a hybrid model where online instruction alternates with in-person teaching in classrooms that have reduced class sizes and social distance protocols in place. Hybrid education can help schools address the needs of vulnerable learners, including younger children who are difficult to engage online, as well as low-income and special education students, along with English-language learners.…Read More

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How 5 states are rocking education data

States are on the right path when it comes to using real-time education data to inform teaching and learning, but they should continue taking critical steps to improve data use, according to a new report.

The Data Quality Campaign’s (DQC) Show Me the Data 2017 report highlights strides made by states in their education data reporting and ways they can make their report cards clearer and more useful so that parents, educators, community members, and policymakers have the information they need to make decisions that help all students excel.

The report cards in the report help show if schools are serving students equitably, and the information, including test scores and postsecondary enrollment, can give school leaders a look at school performance and pinpoint existing inequities.…Read More

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6 questions to ask about data

Data–including big data and learning analytics–has incredible potential for teaching and learning

data-analyticsThe term “big data” is everywhere and, in a nutshell, is the term used today to describe large collections of data that companies use to personalize their products and services.

But what does this concept mean for K-12 education? Well, for starters, increased knowledge of individual students can lead to personalized teaching and learning. This is called learning analytics, which involves using big data for educational purposes, as defined by the New Media Consortium K-12 Horizon Report. The report is produced in collaboration with the Consortium for School Newtworking (CoSN), which recently released a report that examines, in-depth, learning analytics’ potential.

School districts already use data, but learning analytics would enable educators to use this data to a greater extent, examining what the report calls “student-level data” and using that information to determine how students are learning, what might help them learn better, and what teacher practices are or are not having an impact on this learning.…Read More

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Education data: Privacy backlash begins

As increasing amounts of student, class and school data are captured and analyzed, some people have started to sound alarms about potential privacy violations and other kinds of misuse, InformationWeek reports. “I think it’s totally illegitimate to take kids’ data without parental consent,” said Leonie Haimson, a parent activist and executive director of Class Size Matters, a nonprofit organization that wants smaller classes in New York City’s public schools and the nation as a whole. “If these exact same records were in a doctor’s office or hospital, it would be illegal to collect them without parental consent,” she told InformationWeek in a phone interview…

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States make strides in collecting education data

States are implementing robust data systems that could inform tough education decisions, but they need to do more with the data they collect, the Data Quality Campaign says.

Although states have made strong progress increasing their capacity to build and use longitudinal data systems, they aren’t yet helping educators, parents, and other stakeholders use the data to inform decisions to improve student achievement, according to the Data Quality Campaign’s seventh annual state analysis, Data for Action 2011.

More states than ever—36, up from zero in 2005 and 25 states in 2010—have implemented all of DQC’s 10 Essential Elements of Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems, and 49 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have implemented eight or more. This means that, without exception, every state in the country has robust longitudinal data extending beyond test scores that could inform today’s toughest education decisions.…Read More

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Feds launch new education data tool

The Dashboard highlights key education data across 16 indicators.

The federal Education Department (ED) has launched a new website that aims to provide easy access to key state and national education data for all school stakeholders.

The United States Education Dashboard, which debuted Jan. 24, highlights the progress being made across the country at every level of public education, and it encourages communities to engage in a conversation about their schools, ED says.…Read More

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