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Since the election earlier this month, political conversation has moved to a new issue: sequestration, part of the across-the-board federal budget cut of $1.2 trillion that will occur in January 2013 unless Congress acts.

Sequestration became law as a result of the Budget Control Act of 2011, which raised the U.S. debt ceiling limit and established caps on discretionary spending (including spending on education, national parks, defense, medical and scientific research, infrastructure and more) that would reduce spending on these programs by $1 trillion through 2021. This Act also created the “Super Committee,” a bipartisan committee that included members from both the House of Representatives and the Senate and was charged with identifying an additional $1.2 trillion in budgetary savings over ten years. Their failure would trigger the sequester.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the toxic political climate in Washington over the past few years, the Super Committee did in fact fail. And we are currently waiting to see if Congress will replace sequestration with a balanced approach to deficit reduction.

If Congress fails to act, it will impact virtually every aspect of American life, including education. While the numbers aren’t final, estimates show that sequestration will result in a loss of nearly $5 billion to education. The National Education Association estimates that it will impact 9.3 million students ...

Education reform debates increasingly belong to a relatively small number of very loud voices. Hundreds of thousands of other voices get lost in the din. They belong to students and teachers, and their vision for our nation’s high schools varies dramatically from the content in mainstream education reform discussions.

The College Board recently released a supplement to Phi Delta Kappan that highlights key thoughts from students and teachers on both school reform and student engagement.  The results are worth summarizing and repeating mostly because the takeaways are remarkably uniform with regard to recommendations and advice for education reformers. The main message is that we need a long-term commitment to a well-rounded, multi-pronged approach to school improvement. ...

By Nora L. Howley, Manager of Programs, NEA Health Information Network

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that students missed over 38 million school days a year because of influenza (flu). 

While there are no figures available for adults that work in schools, CDC also reports that flu causes 100 million lost work days each year.

Help students—and yourself—by taking action.  CDC recommends some simple actions to fight the flu.  Many schools already do a great job of helping to prevent the spread of germs through routine hand washing and other basic hygiene strategies. 

CDC notes that the most important step most of us can to take in preventing flu is to get a flu vaccine. This year flu vaccines have been available since September, but many people still have not gotten their shot.  And many parents may not be aware that ...

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am delighted with the election results from earlier this month.  Well, I’m delighted with most of the election results.  I’m sorely disappointed that my friend and colleague, Helen F. Morris, lost her position on the Alexandria City (VA) School Board, where she serves as Vice Chairman and has put countless hours into advocating for strong schools and effective teachers for ALL the students in Alexandria, especially children of color and those from disadvantaged homes.  Helen ran for re-election in a field of six for one of three positions in her region.  She was the only incumbent running and the only candidate with a child in the Alexandria City Public Schools.  I have no idea how capable (or not) the other candidates are (I live in Maryland and didn’t study the other candidates’ positions or backgrounds).  What I do know because I worked for years with her on issues around strong public education is that Helen’s position on the school board was a good thing for the children and citizens of Alexandria. ...

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By working together in meaningful ways, educators and parents have already improved outcomes for students across the country. Check out our examples of successful family/school partnerships.

Each generation has a personality, characteristics and preferences that define their behavior and their views of the world. Millennials, those born between 1980 and 2000, are no different. Their arrival in the professional world has significant implications for the workplace, across sectors but including – and perhaps especially – education.

The October issue of Learning Forward’s JSD features “Boomers and Millennials: Vive La Difference,” an article by Suzette Lovely that examines ways to blend different generational styles in the learning environment. The article poses five suggestions for creating a generationally friendly culture. They pay homage to the distinct differences between generations in the same workplace. What’s more, they aim to foster a more collaborative learning environment, helping ensure that an older, more experienced generation of teachers can pass on their knowledge to a new energetic teaching force. This new generation of professionals, in turn, must feel embraced by their older colleagues and respected for their ideas, innovation and energy. ...

We’ve all heard about summer learning loss. Students lose between one and two months' worth of academic knowledge each summer. Low-income students are particularly sensitive to this phenomenon – some research suggests that more than half of the achievement gap seen in reading between these students and their wealthier peers can be attributed to summer loss.

So across the nation, schools, districts and states are trying to address the issue. One seemingly obvious solution: A move to year-round schooling. Given that the most popular school calendar in the nation is a relic from our agrarian days, when children were needed in the fields at specific times during the year, it certainly makes sense to revisit it. And many schools and communities have adopted a year-round calendar, replacing a long summer break with shorter breaks throughout the year.

But I was interested to read an article out of Grand Rapids, MI, that indicated a possible move in the opposite direction. Because of chronic absences at some district elementary schools that run on a year-round calendar (at one school, 41% of ...

Parent and family engagement is a critical component in ensuring student achievement and success in school. However, traditional models of parent-teacher interaction (for example, conventional parent-teacher conferences) do not necessarily have a substantial effect on student performance.

Dr. Maria C. Paredes, a Senior Program Associate at WestEd, noticed that although parents in the Creighton Elementary School District did have high levels of engagement, student performance levels were static. Through the help of surveys of both parents and teachers, Dr. Paredes redesigned the district's parent-teacher engagement model to better serve both parties. The result - Academic Parent-Teacher Teams (APTT*) - is proving effective, and the model is spreading across classrooms and districts. Dr. Paredes recently took time to discuss the model with Public School Insights. 

Public School Insights (PSI): Tell us a little about the program at Creighton and the APTT Model. What are some of the key components?

Dr. Paredes: Academic Parent-Teacher Teams (APTT) is an intentional, systematic means of increasing student academic learning and performance by enhancing the quality of parent-teacher communication and collaboration. APTT was designed using the lessons learned from research and those learned by doing the work. APTT gives purpose, structure, and direction to school leaders and teachers on how to engage families in student learning. By providing parent education and creating a two-way system of regular communication, teachers can ensure that parents have knowledge and understanding of their children’s grade level learning goals, and that parents are engaged in helping their children meet or ...

Candidly, and not surprisingly, I’m delighted that Barack Obama was elected to a second term as President of the United States.  As someone whose entire professional career has been devoted to public education and life-long learning, I believe that President Obama’s values and priorities are closer to mine than his opponent’s are.  

Having stated my delight in the President’s re-election, I also want to enumerate my hopes for his administration’s leadership in strengthening and improving public K-12 education over the next four years. I fervently hope that:

• The President, Secretary of Education, and administration leaders will STOP saying that our public school system is failing.  We all know that there are serious inequities in the current system that need to be addressed and that a collective effort needs to be made to increase the rigor of instruction in many of our schools.  But, most public schools in this country do a good job; indeed, a better job than has ever been done before.
• The President, Secretary of Education and their spokespersons will STOP saying that the current teaching force is largely recruited from the weakest students in any
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Public K-12 schooling is a popular subject in all forms of media these days, with the majority of coverage highly critical of both the professionals who work within the system and the performance of the students with whom they work. Prominent national leaders from government, corporations, and philanthropic organizations, having positioned themselves as "reformers," hold the bully pulpit in not only proclaiming education professionals as inadequate in ability and practice, but also in controlling access to significant resources to define and support reform efforts.

Those of us who have spent our careers in public education have always welcomed interest and enthusiasm from those outside the profession when that involvement focuses on unique perspectives and skill sets they can bring to the learning environment, including financial support, assistance with new technologies, participation in career days, and internship opportunities for students. We also welcome open discussion and the sharing of experience that can contribute to new ways of thinking about the challenges we face in our daily work with students. ...