This week’s evidence, an article from a Harvard student, is courtesy of Kim Marshall: AWOL from Academics | Harvard Magazine.

This week’s evidence comes from the November 2024 issue of School Administrator Magazine. Denver Public School Chief Information Officer Richard Charles offers some cautionary tales about the perils of unchecked artificial intelligence.

Dear Friends,

This week’s evidence involves students who may be most severely affected by the recent election- students raised here but lacking legal immigration status.

This week’s evidence comes from Professor Gloria Mark, author of the wonderful book, “Attention Span,” who shared this remarkable data in one of my favorite podcasts, “Hidden Brain” hosted by Shankar Vedantan.

Many of you are already seeing the use of AI in classrooms and collaborative teams of teachers. If you ask Chat GPT to identify the ten most important influencers in education, John Hattie is at the top of the list. Here are some observations that John and I have about AI so far:

This week’s evidence comes from Edutopia and the Fordham Institute. It’s a stark reminder about how things that we take for granted – such as the essential need for social and emotional learning – are alien to many parents. The report (https://sel.fordhaminstitute.org) said:

This week’s evidence comes from one of my favorite authors, Charles Duhigg. “Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection” (2024) is particularly relevant to educational leaders. For people who are coaching colleagues, this might be especially helpful. Some key findings:

This week’s evidence comes from the annual Phi Delta Kappan poll about education in America (https://pdkpoll.org/2024-poll-results/). Some key findings include:

While the national teacher shortage has received a great deal of attention, just as alarming is the shortage of qualified principals. In 2021, the National Association of Secondary School Principals reported survey results that suggested a mass exodus of principles, with more than half of school administrators planning to quit. 

This week’s research update comes from Yuval Noah Harari, best known as the author of the blockbuster Sapiens. 

This week’s evidence is an article about 11 new tech trends for education. It’s a nice blend of digital citizenship and tools teachers can use to provide personalized learning even as class sizes grow. 

This week’s evidence is a shocker, at least to me. As you may recall from previous research updates, I’ve been enthusiastic about artificial intelligence's ethical and effective use. Banning it is futile, and our students need to know how to use it and improve on the output from Chat GPT and other AI programs. But my enthusiasm was tempered by Erik Baker in Harpers. 

This week’s evidence is on a critically important topic: chronic absenteeism. This is a leading cause of failure and, ultimately, dropouts. 

Dear Friends,

This week’s evidence is on one of my favorite subjects – the toxic impact of homework, especially on students from low-income families. The new article comes from a surprising source – Mike Petrelli of the Fordham Institute.

This week’s evidence is on a topic I have not addressed before – how to support substitute teachers. This is a critical issue for many of our clients, some of whom are staffed 50% by long-term (or a series of short-term) substitute teachers.  The evidence is from Edutopia (https://www.edutopia.org/article/supporting-substitute-teachers/), and some of the key findings include:

This week's research comes from Sarah D. Sparks. She covers education research, data, and the science of learning for Education Week.

3 Counterintuitive Findings About Motivation That Teachers Can Use

Dear Friends,

This week’s evidence comes from the Eberly Center at Carnegie Mellon University. It addresses a pervasive concern of teachers – classroom discipline. This is important because even with fully certified teachers, their undergraduate teacher preparation programs provided little help in classroom management. Moreover, many districts have a large number of long-term substitute teachers and non-certified teachers who have had no training at all in dealing with student discipline.

Dear Friends,

This week’s evidence comes from a forthcoming study by Chingos of the Urban Institute. The question is the impact of class size reduction on students. A recently signed New York law caps class size at 20, k-4; 24 5-8; and 25 9-12. California had already run this experiment in the 90s, and it was a disaster. Some students went four years without a qualified teacher. Why is this very popular law so bad?

Dear Friends,

Here's the latest evidence of interest to educators and leaders. There has been a lot of ink spilled about artificial intelligence recently, but here is the single best source I’ve seen so far. It’s Brave New Words by Sal Kahn. I’ve been converted from skeptic to advocate by this book. I had worried that Kahn Academy was just helping privileged kids, who had great internet connectivity, get their homework done.

This week’s evidence comes from a large (3 million students) study of primary age students – K-2 based on iReady data from Curriculum Associates.  The results are dismal with this group of students showing lower reading levels and slower growth than before the pandemic.  Entering kindergarten and grade 1, students have lower levels of reading readiness – obviously, not related to missed school during those grades.