| |||||||||||||||||||||||
NJ Spotlight--Q&A: Psychologist On Law Adding Mental Health To Ed. Standards
Kelly Moore, chief investigator at the Children's Center for Resilience and Trauma Recovery at Rutgers sees measure as ‘game-changer’
Gov. Phil Murphy last week signed a law adding mental health as a central piece of New Jersey’s student learning standards, the benchmarks from which public schools build their curricula.
The law is the second of its kind in the country, and aims to recognize the importance of teaching children — and adults — the importance of mental health in the growth and well-being of New Jersey’s students.
The signing prompted NJ Spotlight to speak this week with Kelly Moore, a psychologist and chief investigator with the Children’s Center for Resilience and Trauma Recovery at Rutgers University, about the state of children’s mental health in New Jersey and how the new law might help. She called it a “game-changer.” The following are edited excerpts of the conversation.
John Mooney | August 16, 2019
NY Times--Push for Ethnic Studies in Schools Faces a Dilemma: Whose Stories to Tell
Discuss a recent instance of police brutality in your community. Read op-eds arguing for and against legal status for unauthorized immigrants. Compare and contrast border conditions in the Palestinian territories and Mexico.
Those are some of the lesson plans suggested in a draft of California’s newly proposed ethnic studies curriculum for K-12 public schools. The documents have led to bitter debate in recent weeks over whether they veer into left-wing propaganda, and whether they are inclusive enough of Jews and other ethnic groups. Now, amid a growing outcry, even progressive policymakers in the state are promising significant revisions.
Dana Goldstein| Aug. 15, 2019
Education Week--Academy Aims to Equip New and Future Principals With Real-World Skills
One of the enduring criticisms of principal-preparation programs is that many still offer courses and experiences that are divorced from the practical skills principals need to address day-to-day challenges they face in schools.
After hearing that kind of feedback from their members and digging into the research on school leadership, two national organizations—the ASSA, the School Superintendents Association and the National Association of Elementary School Principals—have joined forces to launch a professional-development program to help aspiring principals and early-career principals fill in some of their knowledge and skills gaps.
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/District_Dossier/2019/08/new_principal_training_program.html
Denisa R. Superville on August 13, 2019 4:45 PM
Chalkbeat--Merit pay was the heart of a ‘revolutionary’ teachers contract in Newark. Now the Cory Booker-era policy is disappearing.
In 2012, Newark teachers agreed to a controversial new contract that linked their pay to student achievement — a stark departure from the way most teachers across the country are paid.
The idea was to reward teachers for excellent performance, rather than how many years they spent in the district or degrees they attained. Under the new contract, teachers could earn bonuses and raises only if they received satisfactory or better ratings, and advanced degrees would no longer elevate teachers to a higher pay scale.
The changes were considered a major victory for the so-called “education reform” movement, which sought to inject corporate-style accountability and compensation practices into public education. And they were championed by an unlikely trio: New Jersey’s Republican governor, the Democratic-aligned leader of the nation’s second-largest teachers union, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who had allocated half of his $100 million gift to Newark’s schools to fund a new teachers contract.
Patrick Wall| August 15, 2019
Education Dive--Survey: Teachers turn to peers for guidance on instruction
When teachers want academic interventions for struggling students, they are more likely to seek advice from their peers than from administrators. But when they aren’t sure what to do about behavior, absenteeism or other nonacademic issues in their classroom, school leaders and other support staff members are their first choice for guidance.
Those are among the latest findings from the RAND Corp.’s American Educator Panels (AEP), a set of surveys for teachers and administrators.
https://www.educationdive.com/news/survey-teachers-turn-to-peers-for-guidance-on-instruction/560861/
Linda Jacobson @lrj417| Aug. 15, 2019
The Hechinger Report--States increasingly extend charter-like flexibility to district schools
24 states now give districts or individual schools freedom from state regulations to innovate
Charter schools serve just 6 percent of the nation’s public school students, but they have prompted bitter debates about educational priorities – and fair competition – particularly in cities that have a lot of them.
https://hechingerreport.org/states-increasingly-extend-charter-like-flexibility-to-district-schools/
Tara García Mathewson| August 15, 2019
