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Tag: Middle School

  • Why every middle school student deserves a second chance to learn to read

    Key points:

    Between kindergarten and second grade, much of the school day is dedicated to helping our youngest students master phonics, syllabication, and letter-sound correspondence–the essential building blocks to lifelong learning.

    Unfortunately, this foundational reading instruction has been stamped with an arbitrary expiration date. Students who miss that critical learning window, including our English Language Learners (ELL), children with learning disabilities, and those who find reading comprehension challenging, are pushed forward through middle and high school without the tools they need. In the race to catch up to classmates, they struggle academically, emotionally, and in extreme cases, eventually disengage or drop out.

    Thirteen-year-old Alma, for instance, was still learning the English language during those first three years of school. She grappled with literacy for years, watching her peers breeze through assignments while she stumbled over basic decoding. However, by participating in a phonetics-first foundational literacy program in sixth grade, she is now reading at grade level.

    “I am more comfortable when I read,” she shared. “And can I speak more fluently.”

    Alma’s words represent a transformation that American education typically says is impossible after second grade–that every child can become a successful reader if given a second chance.

    Lifting up the learners left behind 

    At Southwestern Jefferson County Consolidated School in Hanover, Ind., I teach middle-school students like Alma who are learning English as their second language. Many spent their formative school years building oral language proficiency and, as a result, lost out on systematic instruction grounded in English phonics patterns. 

    These bright and ambitious students lack basic foundational skills, but are expected to keep up with their classmates. To help ELL students access the same rigorous content as their peers while simultaneously building the decoding skills they missed, we had to give them a do-over without dragging them a step back. 

    Last year, we introduced our students to Readable English, a research-backed phonetic system that makes English decoding visible and teachable at any age. The platform embeds foundational language instruction into grade-level content, including the textbooks, novels, and worksheets all students are using, but with phonetic scaffolding that makes decoding explicit and systematic.

    To help my students unlock the code behind complicated English language rules, we centered our classroom intervention on three core components:

    • Rhyming: The ability to rhyme, typically mastered by age five, is a key early literacy indicator. However, almost every ELL student in my class was missing this vital skill. Changing even one letter can alter the sound of a word, and homographic words like “tear” have completely different sounds and meanings. By embedding a pronunciation guide into classroom content, glyphs–or visual diacritical marks–indicate irregular sounds in common words and provide key information about the sound a particular letter makes.
    • Syllabication patterns: Because our ELL students were busy learning conversational English during the critical K-2 years, systematic syllable division, an essential decoding strategy, was never practiced. Through the platform, visual syllable breaks organize words into simple, readable chunks that make patterns explicit and teachable.
    • Silent letter patterns: With our new phonics platform, students can quickly “hear” different sounds. Unmarked letters make their usual sound while grayed-out letters indicate those with a silent sound. For students frustrated with pronunciation, pulling back the curtain on language rules provided them with that “a-ha” moment.

    The impact on our students’ reading proficiency has been immediate and measurable, creating a cognitive energy shift from decoding to comprehension. Eleven-year-old Rodrigo, who has been in the U.S. for only two years, reports he’s “better at my other classes now” and is seeing boosts in his science, social studies, and math grades.

    Taking a new step on a nationwide level

    The middle-school reading crisis in the U.S. is devastating for our students. One-third of eighth-graders failed to hit the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) benchmark in reading, the largest percentage ever. In addition, students who fail to build literacy skills exhibit lower levels of achievement and are more likely to drop out of school. 

    The state of Indiana has recognized the crisis and, this fall, launched a new reading initiative for middle-school students. While this effort is a celebrated first step, every school needs the right tools to make intervention a success, especially for our ELL students. 

    Educators can no longer expect students to access grade-level content without giving them grade-level decoding skills. Middle-school students need foundational literacy instruction that respects their age, cognitive development, and dignity. Revisiting primary-grade phonics curriculum isn’t the right answer–educators must empower kids with phonetic scaffolding embedded in the same content their classmates are learning. 

    To help all students excel and embrace a love of reading, it’s time to reject the idea that literacy instruction expires in second grade. Instead, all of us can provide every child, at any age, the chance to become a successful lifelong reader who finds joy in the written word.

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    Kim Hicks, Southwestern Jefferson County Consolidated School

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  • Solving the staffing crisis is key to the Science of Reading movement

    Key points:

    As someone who’s dedicated my career to advancing the Science of Reading movement, I’ve seen firsthand what it takes to help every child become a strong, fluent reader. We’ve made incredible strides in shifting the conversation toward evidence-based instruction, but I know we’re at a critical inflection point. While we–obviously–continue our work helping schools and districts adopt SOR, there’s an issue that stands in the way of real, sustained, progress: the staffing crisis and leadership churn that are leaving our educators overwhelmed and skeptical toward “change.” Without addressing these deeper structural issues, we risk stalling the momentum we’ve worked so hard to build.

    The hidden costs of constant turnover

    The data on teacher and leader turnover is bleak, and I’ve seen how it undermines the long-term commitment needed for any meaningful change. Consider this: Roughly 1 in 6 teachers won’t return to the same classroom next year, and nearly half of new teachers leave within their first five years. This constant churn is a massive financial burden on districts, costing an estimated $20,000 per teacher to recruit, hire, and onboard. But the real cost is the human one. Every time a new leader or teacher steps in, the hard-won progress on a literacy initiative can be jeopardized.

    I’ve watched districts spend years building momentum for the Science of Reading, providing extensive training and resources, only to see a new superintendent or principal arrive with a new set of priorities. This “leader wobble” can pull the rug out from under an initiative mid-stream. It’s especially frustrating when a new leader decides a program has had “plenty of professional learning” without taking the time to audit its impact. This lack of continuity completely disrupts the 3-5 years it takes for an initiative to truly take hold, especially because new teachers often arrive with a knowledge gap, as only about one-quarter of teacher preparation programs teach the Science of Reading. We can’t build on a foundation that’s constantly shifting.

    Overwhelmed by “initiative fatigue”

    I know what it feels like to have too much on your plate. Teachers, already juggling countless instructional materials, often see each new program not as a solution but as one more thing to learn, implement, and manage. Instead of excitement, there’s skepticism–this is initiative fatigue, and it can stall real progress. I’ve seen it firsthand; one large district I worked with rolled out new reading, math, and phonics resources all at once.

    To prevent this, we need to follow the principle of “pull weeds to plant flowers.” Being critical, informed consumers of resources means choosing flowers (materials) that are:

    • Supported by high-quality, third-party research
    • Aligned across all tiers of instruction
    • Versatile enough to meet varied student needs
    • Teacher-friendly, with clear guidance and instructional dialogue
    • Culturally relevant, reflecting the diverse backgrounds of students

    Now, even when a resource meets these standards, adoption shouldn’t be additive. Teachers can’t layer new tools on top of old ones. To see real change, old resources must be replaced with better ones. Educators need solutions that provide a unified, research-backed framework across all tiers, giving teachers clarity, support, and a path to sustainable student progress.

    Building a stable environment for sustained change

    So, how do we create the stable environment needed to support our educators? It starts with leadership that is in it for the long game. We need to mitigate turnover by using data to understand why teachers are leaving and then acting on that feedback. Strengthening mentorship, clarifying career pathways, and improving school culture are all crucial steps.

    Beyond just retaining staff, leaders must foster a culture of sustained commitment. It’s not enough to have a few “islands of excellence” where a handful of teachers are getting great results.

    We need system-wide adoption. This requires strong leaders to balance support and accountability. I’ve seen how collaborative teams, engaged in problem-solving and data-based decision-making, can transform a school. When teachers see students as “our students” and not just “my students,” shared ownership grows.

    A leader’s job is to protect and sustain this vision, making sure the essential supports–like collaborative planning time, ongoing professional development, and in-classroom coaching–are in place. But sustaining change goes beyond daily management; it requires building deep capacity so the work continues even if leadership shifts. This means hiring, training, and retaining strong educators, investing in future leaders, and ensuring committed advocates are part of the implementation team. It also requires creating a detailed, actionable roadmap, with budgets clearly allocated and accountability measures established, so that any initiative isn’t just a short-term priority but a long-term promise. By embedding these structures, leaders can secure continuity, maintain momentum, and ensure that every step forward in literacy translates into lasting gains for students.

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    Laura Stewart, 95 Percent Group

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  • 100 Learning Spaces Transformed, $5 Million Invested: School Specialty and College Football Playoff Foundation Celebrate Impact Across Schools Nationwide

    New media center at North Dade Middle School marks milestone in initiative revitalizing learning environments to benefit the entire learning community

    GREENVILLE, WI– November 21, 2025 – School Specialty and the College Football Playoff (CFP) Foundation today announced the completion of a media center makeover at North Dade Middle School, marking the 100th learning space transformed in collaboration with the Extra Yard Makeover initiative. As a part of their nationwide effort to enhance learning environments for students and educators alike, the two organizations have now invested over $5 million into reinvigorating classrooms across the country.

    Miami will host the 2026 College Football Playoff National Championship in January, and as part of its legacy work in the community, the CFP Foundation has committed to delivering more than 30 Extra Yard Makeovers alongside School Specialty to revitalize innovation spaces across schools in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. With this latest round of makeovers, the CFP Foundation will have helped enrich learning environments in every Miami-Dade middle school.

    “Changing our middle school libraries into modern learning spaces has had a tremendous impact on engagement and learning outcomes,” said Dr. Jose L. Dotres, Superintendent of Miami-Dade County Public Schools. “In addition to renovation, the transformation is an investment in our teachers, our students and our future. These new innovative spaces support hands-on learning for students of today and tomorrow, so they can develop greater curiosity for learning and lifelong skills.”

    These makeovers transform static spaces into flourishing learning environments, providing upgrades like flexible furniture, technology, supplies and even fresh paint or murals. Each school receives the School Specialty proprietary Projects by DesignⓇ experience, which includes comprehensive consultations to determine the type of space that best supports students, educators and the broader school community. Past rooms made over include STEM labs, broadcast classrooms, libraries, media centers, makerspace rooms, teachers lounges, wellness spaces, sensory rooms, multi-purpose rooms, an esports room and a mariachi room.

    “The transformation of our media center is truly invaluable to our students and staff,” said Nicole Fama, Executive Director at Phalen Leadership Academies, which received a makeover in 2024. “We are profoundly grateful to the College Football Playoff Foundation and School Specialty for this investment. Before the media center, we lacked a space that truly fostered community. Now, everything happens here—from senior breakfasts and college athlete signing days to family game nights and teacher appreciation events. It has become the heart of our community, a space we didn’t realize we needed until it was here.”

    These makeovers serve to benefit both students and teachers, allowing schools to improve their offerings, inspire innovation and modern learning, and directly counter some of the top issues in education today.

    “Addressing teacher burnout and maximizing student engagement starts with the physical environment,” said Jeremy Westbrooks, Director of Strategic Account Development at School Specialty. “The physical classroom is an educator’s primary tool, and by modernizing these spaces, the CFP Foundation and School Specialty are delivering a critical resource that empowers teachers to stay focused on their students’ growth and long-term success.”

    “We’re proud to work alongside School Specialty to bring these meaningful makeover projects to life,” said Britton Banowsky, Executive Director College Football Playoff Foundation. “Their expertise in the design of the spaces and incredible generosity make it possible for us to turn vision into impact for teachers and students.”

    In addition to the CFP Foundation and School Specialty, these makeovers have been supported over the years by Bowl Games, Conference partners, Sponsors and host committees of each College Football Playoff National Championship. To date, makeovers have taken place in 18 states across 58 counties.

    To learn more about the College Playoff Foundation’s Extra Yard Makeover initiative, click here.

    To learn more about School Specialty, click here.

    About School Specialty, LLC 

    With a 60-year legacy, School Specialty is a leading provider of comprehensive learning environment solutions for the infant-K12 education marketplace in the U.S. and Canada. This includes essential classroom supplies, furniture and design services, educational technology, sensory spaces featuring Snoezelen, science curriculum, learning resources, professional development, and more. School Specialty believes every student can flourish in an environment where they are engaged and inspired to learn and grow. In support of this vision to transform more than classrooms, the company applies its unmatched team of education strategists and designs, manufactures, and distributes a broad assortment of name-brand and proprietary products. For more information, go to SchoolSpecialty.com.

    About the College Football Playoff Foundation

    The College Football Playoff (CFP) Foundation is the 501(c)3 non-profit organization serving as the community engagement arm of the College Football Playoff and works in partnership with institutions of higher education, sports organizations, corporations and non-profits to support educators and improve student outcomes. The purpose of the CFP Foundation lies in supporting PK-12 education by elevating the teaching profession. The CFP Foundation inspires and empowers educators by focusing its work in four areas: recognition, resources, recruitment and retention, and professional development. To learn more, visit cfp-foundation.org and follow Extra Yard for Teachers (@CFPExtraYard) on social media.

    Media Contact
    Jon Kannenberg
    SchoolSpecialty@finnpartners.com

    eSchool News Staff
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    ESchool News Staff

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  • The end of one-direction career pathways: Why empowering students sets the best course for future success

    Key points:

    When middle school students make the leap to high school, they are expected to have a career path in mind so their classes and goals align with their future plans. That’s a tremendous ask of a teenager who is unaware of the opportunities that await them–and emerging careers that have yet to exist.

    Mentors, parents, and educators spend so much time urging students to focus on their future that we do them a disservice by distracting them from their present–their passions, their interests, their hobbies. This self-discovery, combined with exposure to various career fields, fuels students’ motivation and serves as a guidebook for their professional journey.

    To meet their mission of directing every student toward an individualized post-secondary plan, schools need to prioritize recognizing each student’s lifestyle goals. That way, our kids can find their best-fit career and develop greater self-awareness of their own identity.

    Give students greater autonomy over their career exploration

    The most problematic aspect of traditional career-readiness programs is that they’re bound so tightly to the classes in which a student excels.

    For example, a high schooler on a technology track might be assigned an engineer as a mentor. However, that same student may also possess a love for writing, but because their core classes are science-based, they may never learn how to turn that passion into a career in the engineering field, whether as a UX writer, technical editor, or tech journalist. 

    Schools have the opportunity to help students identify their desired lifestyle, existing strengths, and possible career paths. In Aurora Public Schools in Nebraska, the district partnered with our company, Find Your Grind, an ESSA Tier 2 validated career exploration program, to guide students through a Lifestyle Assessment, enabling them to discover who they are now and who they want to become. Through this approach, teachers helped surface personalized careers, mentors, and pathway courses that aligned with students’ lifestyle goals.

    Meanwhile, in Ohio, school districts launched Lifestyle Fairs, immersive, future-ready events designed to introduce students to real-world career experiences, industry mentors, and interactive learning grounded in self-discovery. Hilliard City Schools, for example, welcomed more than seventh-grade students to a Lifestyle Fair this past May. 

    Rather than rely on a conventional booth-style setup, Hilliard offered interactive activations that centered on 16 lifestyle archetypes, including Competitor, Explorer, Connector, and Entrepreneur. The stations allowed students to engage with various industry leaders and participate in hands-on activities, including rocket launch simulations and creative design challenges, to ignite their curiosity. Following the Fair, educators reported increased student engagement and a renewed enthusiasm for learning about potential career paths.

    Create a fluidity path for future success

    According to the World Economic Forum, by 2030, 97 million jobs will be displaced by AI, significantly impacting lower-wage earners and workers of color. At the same time, 170 million new jobs are expected to be created, especially in emerging fields. By providing students more freedom in their career exploration, educators can help them adapt to this ever-changing 21st-century job market.

    Now is the time for school districts to ensure all students have access to equitable career planning programs and work to close societal disparities that hinder professional opportunities. Instead of setting students on a predetermined pathway toward a particular field–which may or may not exist a decade from now–educators must equip them with future-proof and transferable core skills, including flexibility, initiative, and productivity, in addition to job-specific skills. As the job market shifts, students will be prepared to change direction, switch jobs, and pivot between careers. 

    In Hawaii, students are taking advantage of career exploration curriculum that aligns with 21st-century career and technical education (CTE) frameworks. They are better prepared to complete their Personal Transition Plans, which are required for graduation by the state, and have access to micro-credentials that give them real-world experience in different industries rather than one particular field.

    For decades, career planning has placed students in boxes, based on what the adults in their lives expect of them. Ensuring every child reaches their full professional potential means breaking down the barriers that have been set up around them and allowing them to be at the center of their own career journey. When students are empowered to discover who they are and where they want to be, they are excited to explore all the incredible opportunities available to them. 

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    Nick Gross, Find Your Grind

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  • 3 strategies to boost student reading fluency this school year

    Key points:

    With the new school year now rolling, teachers and school leaders are likely being hit with a hard truth: Many students are not proficient in reading.

    This, of course, presents challenges for students as they struggle to read new texts and apply what they are learning across all subject areas, as well as for educators who are diligently working to support students’ reading fluency and overall academic progress. 

    Understanding the common challenges students face with reading–and knowing which instructional strategies best support their growth–can help educators more effectively get students to where they need to be this school year.

    Understanding the science of learning

    Many districts across the country have invested in evidence-based curricula grounded in the science of reading to strengthen how foundational skills such as decoding and word recognition are taught. However, for many students, especially those receiving Tier 2 and Tier 3 interventions, this has not been enough to help them develop the automatic word recognition needed to become fluent, confident readers.

    This is why coupling the science of reading with the science of learning is so important when it comes to reading proficiency. Simply stated, the science of learning is how students learn. It identifies the conditions needed for students to build automaticity and fluency in complex skills, and it includes principles such as interleaving, spacing practice, varying tasks, highlighting contrasts, rehearsal, review, and immediate feedback–all of which are essential for helping students consolidate and generalize their reading skills.

    When these principles are intentionally combined with the science of reading’s structured literacy principles, students are able to both acquire new knowledge and retain, retrieve, and apply it fluently in new contexts.

    Implementing instructional best practices

    The three best practices below not only support the use of the science of learning and the science of reading, but they give educators the data and information needed to help set students up for reading success this school year and beyond. 

    Screen all students. It is important to identify the specific strengths and weaknesses of each student as early as possible so that educators can personalize their instruction accordingly.

    Some students, even those in upper elementary and middle school, may still lack foundational skills, such as decoding and automatic word recognition, which in turn negatively impact fluency and comprehension. Using online screeners that focus on decoding skills, as well as automatic word recognition, can help educators more quickly understand each student’s needs so they can efficiently put targeted interventions in place to help.

    Online screening data also helps educators more effectively communicate with parents, as well as with a student’s intervention team, in a succinct and timely way.

    Provide personalized structured, systematic practice. This type of practice has been shown to help close gaps in students’ foundational skills so they can successfully transfer their decoding and automatic word recognition skills to fluency. The use of technology and online programs can optimize the personalization needed for students while providing valuable insights for teachers.

    Of course, when it comes to personalizing practice, technology should always enhance–not replace–the role of the teacher. Technology can help differentiate the questions and lessons students receive, track students’ progress, and engage students in a non-evaluative learning environment. However, the personal attention and direction given by a teacher is always the most essential aid, especially for struggling readers. 

    Monitor progress on oral reading. Practicing reading aloud is important for developing fluency, although it can be very personal and difficult for many struggling learners. Students may get nervous, embarrassed, or lose their confidence. As such, the importance of a teacher’s responsiveness and ongoing connection while monitoring the progress of a student cannot be overstated.

    When teachers establish the conditions for a safe and trusted environment, where errors can occur without judgment, students are much more motivated to engage and read aloud. To encourage this reading, teachers can interleave passages of different lengths and difficulty levels, or revisit the same text over time to provide students with spaced opportunities for practice and retrieval. By providing immediate and constructive feedback, teachers can also help students self-correct and refine their skills in real time.

    Having a measurable impact

    All students can become strong, proficient readers when they are given the right tools, instruction, and support grounded in both the science of learning and the science of reading. For educators, this includes screening effectively, providing structured and personalized practice, and creating environments where students feel comfortable learning and practicing skills and confident reading aloud.

    By implementing these best practices, which take into account both what students need to learn and how they learn best, educators can and will make a measurable difference in students’ reading growth this school year.

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    Dr. Carolyn Brown, Foundations in Learning

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  • Strengthening middle school literacy: What educators need to know

    Key points:

    Literacy has always been the foundation of learning, but for middle school students, the stakes are especially high. These years mark the critical shift from learning to read to reading to learn.

    When students enter sixth, seventh, or eighth grade still struggling with foundational skills, every subject becomes harder–science labs, social studies texts, even math word problems require reading proficiency. For educators, the challenge is not just addressing gaps but also building the confidence that helps adolescents believe they can succeed.

    The confidence gap

    By middle school, many students are keenly aware when they’re behind their peers in reading. Interventions that feel too elementary can undermine motivation. As Dr. Michelle D. Barrett, Senior Vice President of Research, Policy, and Impact at Edmentum, explained:

    “If you have a student who’s in the middle grades and still has gaps in foundational reading skills, they need to be provided with age-appropriate curriculum and instruction. You can’t give them something that feels babyish–that only discourages them.”

    Designing for engagement

    Research shows that engagement is just as important as instruction, particularly for adolescents. “If students aren’t engaged, if they’re not showing up to school, then you have a real problem,” Barrett said. “It’s about making sure that even if students have gaps, they’re still being supported with curriculum that feels relevant and engaging.”

    To meet that need, digital programs like Edmentum’s Exact Path tailor both design and content to the learner’s age. “A middle schooler doesn’t want the cartoony things our first graders get,” Barrett noted. “That kind of thing really does matter–not just for engagement, but also for their confidence and willingness to keep going.”

    Measuring what works

    Educators also need strong data to target interventions. “It’s all about how you’re differentiating for those students,” Barrett said. “You’ve got to have great assessments, engaging content that’s evidence-based, and a way for students to feel and understand success.”

    Exact Path begins with universal screening, then builds personalized learning paths grounded in research-based reading progressions. More than 60 studies in the past two years have shown consistent results. “When students complete eight skills per semester, we see significant growth across grade levels–whether measured by NWEA MAP, STAR, or state assessments,” Barrett added.

    That growth extends across diverse groups. “In one large urban district, we found the effect sizes for students receiving special education services were twice that of their peers,” Barrett said. “That tells us the program can be a really effective literacy intervention for students most at risk.”

    Layering supports for greater impact

    Barrett emphasized that literacy progress is strongest when multiple supports are combined. “With digital curriculum, students do better. But with a teacher on top of that digital curriculum, they do even better. Add intensive tutoring, and outcomes improve again,” she said.

    Progress monitoring and recognition also help build confidence. “Students are going to persist when they can experience success,” Barrett added. “Celebrating growth, even in small increments, matters for motivation.”

    A shared mission

    While tools like Exact Path provide research-backed support, Barrett stressed that literacy improvement is ultimately a shared responsibility. “District leaders should be asking: How is this program serving students across different backgrounds? Is it working for multilingual learners, students with IEPs, students who are at risk?” she said.

    The broader goal, she emphasized, is preparing students for lifelong learning. “Middle school is such an important time. If we can help students build literacy and confidence there, we’re not just improving test scores–we’re giving them the skills to succeed in every subject, and in life.”

    Laura Ascione
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    Laura Ascione

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  • As girls flag football continues to grow, Chicago Bears look to middle schoolers

    Grand Crossing resident Fallan White, 15, is doing what she can now to make a name for herself.

    Not even old enough to drive, the wide receiver for Butler College Prep’s flag football team will graduate in 2028 — the same year flag football will make its Olympic debut at the Summer Games in Los Angeles — and she’s making sure she’s ready.

    “It’s better to start off early than wait,” she said.

    White was one of more than a dozen players from Butler in Lake Forest on Aug. 14 to partake in the festivities that surround Chicago Bears training camp. The event was among a handful this summer that brought five high schools with girls flag football teams to camp, including Simeon, Harvard, Homewood-Flossmoor and Carver Military Academy. The athletes met players, coaches and Bears President/CEO Kevin Warren, who donated cleats to each team.

    The visits occurred right before the flag football season started, reflecting the Bears’ continued commitment to creating pathways for girls in football. Gustavo Silva, Bears manager of youth football and community programs, said roughly 200 schools will have girls flag football this year.He said Illinois is in the top five or six states for girls flag football participation. And to think the sport started with just 22 teams in Chicago Public Schools in 2021.

    “Whether it’s playing for their rec league, park district, a Boys and Girls Club, a youth organization, for them to have a pathway … the goal is to make the game as inclusive and accessible as possible, to create different entry points so that anyone interested in playing the game, boy, girl, different abilities, can all have access to the game,” Silva said.

    Angel Brooks, head coach of Butler’s flag team, has been involved with the sport for years, playing on Sundays for the Absolute Athletics league. Now the physical education teacher at Catherine Cook School is building out the high school team, many of whom are underclassmen playing varsity. In their second season, Brooks hopes to get enough athletes on the Lynx team to generate a JV team. She said the team’s 2024 win in one of the CPS Bowl championship games (the CPS Hardwork Bowl) is helping with recruitment.

    “It’s (flag football) always been intriguing to me,” she said. “Being able to coach, it’s even more fun because it’s pleasing to see when the girls learn and start to understand the sport. It’s a sport that gives them their own lane and their own opportunities, and they enjoy it.”

    Chicago Bears host Butler College Prep’s girls flag football team at Halas Hall on Aug. 14, 2025. (Chicago Bears)

    The Lynx’s season starts Tuesday, and quarterback Nevaeh Beasley, 17, a senior, already has her sights on garnering flag football scholarships to pursue a degree in sports medicine.

    “I’ve loved sports ever since I was little, so it has to be something with sports,” she said. Her advice for those curious about flag football: “Work hard and be dedicated, because this game could take you a long way, since it’s just starting out.”

    Silva said Illinois was the ninth state in the nation to sanction flag football for girls in 2024; Ohio just got sanctioned, making the total 17. Now that Illinois colleges are building programs for girls flag (the Bears will host a college tournament for Illinois schools in March), Silva is looking forward to making more milestones in the field — from growing girls flag football to 300 high schools to strengthening the flag football pipeline, and getting girls flag sanctioned for the middle school population.

    “With the Olympics in 2028, we’d love to see girls from Illinois and Chicago participate,” Silva said. “We have international leagues that we started — three in the UK and two in Spain that are going to start this fall. We want to see representation from our Chicago market.”

    “We are working with middle schools starting a pilot league in Rockford this fall. … We want to use the same model that we did with the high school programs. The middle school level will feed the high school programs, which will feed the collegiate programs, and those collegiate and high school programs will feed the international programming. We’re trying to create a pathway from youth all the way through adulthood.”

    Darcel Rockett

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  • How to Empower Students to Navigate Politics and Media Bias in 2024 Election

    How to Empower Students to Navigate Politics and Media Bias in 2024 Election

    It’s tough enough for the average American to navigate through the torrents of mis- and disinformation flooding social media platforms. How about having to guide a classroom full of eighth graders? David Raymond and Eric Gimbi somehow seem to enjoy it. Both are middle school teachers in the swing state of Pennsylvania and well as part of the Bobblehead George geek squad. I was able to trade techniques with them along with Tory Van Voorhis, creator of the non-partisan and data-driven platform, Election Edge, and CEO of Second Avenue Learning, to discuss how and why educators must address the 2024 presidential election in the classroom.

    Have a listen:

    Kevin Hogan
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  • 14-year-old Named America’s Top Young Scientist for Inventing an AI Handheld Pesticide Detector

    14-year-old Named America’s Top Young Scientist for Inventing an AI Handheld Pesticide Detector

    ST. PAUL, Minn. & CHARLOTTE, N.C. – 3M (@3M) and Discovery Education (@DiscoveryEd) named Sirish Subash, a 9th grader at Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology in Snellville, Georgia, the winner of the 2024 3M Young Scientist Challenge, the nation’s premier middle school science competition. Sirish set himself apart with an AI handheld pesticide detector. As the grand prize winner, he received a $25,000 cash prize and the prestigious title of “America’s Top Young Scientist.” 

    Sirish spent the last four months competing against nine other finalists and secured his win during final Challenge events at 3M global headquarters in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Oct. 14 and 15. Finalists navigated a series of interactive challenges and were evaluated on their ingenuity and innovative thinking, application of STEM principles, demonstration of passion and research, presentation skills, and ability to inspire others.   

    “This year’s Young Scientist Challenge finalists have demonstrated an incredible ability to develop creative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges,” said Torie Clarke, EVP & chief public affairs officer at 3M. “I am beyond impressed and inspired by their intelligence and their scientific minds. Congratulations to this year’s Top Young Scientist, Sirish Subash, and all the finalists for their phenomenal work.”  

    Sirish Subash’s project, Pestiscand, is a handheld device designed to detect pesticide residues on produce using a non-destructive method. It employs spectrophotometry, which involves measuring how light of various wavelengths is reflected off the surface of fruits and vegetables. A machine learning model then analyzes this data to determine the presence of pesticides. Pestiscand consists of a sensor, a power supply, a display screen, and a processor. During testing, the device achieved an accuracy rate of identifying pesticide residues on spinach and tomatoes of greater than 85%, meeting the project’s objectives for effectiveness and speed. 

    3M Young Scientist Challenge finalists are paired with a 3M scientist who mentors and works with them one-on-one over the summer to transform their idea from concept to prototype. This year’s winner was paired with Aditya Banerji, Senior Research Engineer of 3M’s Corporate Research Process Laboratory.   

    The second and third place winners from the Young Scientist Challenge each receive a $2,000 prize. These exceptional students are: 

    • In second place, Minula Weerasekera from Beaverton, Oregon, a 9thgrader at Mountainside High School. Minula developed a solution for storing energy for longer through organic compounds and a sulfur-based terhiophene.  
    • In third place, William Tan from Scarsdale, New York, an 8th grader at Scarsdale Middle School. William developed an AI Smart Artificial Reef that encourages coral, seashells, kelp and other marine life to grow in a safe and controlled environment. 

    The fourth through tenth place winners each receive a $1,000 prize and a $500 gift card. These finalists, in alphabetical order by last name, are:  

    • Ankan Das from Sanford, Florida, a 9th grader at Oviedo High School in the Seminole County School District
    • Steven Goodman from Lake Mary, Florida, an 8th grader at Milwee Middle School in the Seminole County School District
    • Aakash Manaswi from Orlando, Florida, a 9th grader at Lake Highland Preparatory School
    • Prince Nallamothula from Frisco, Texas, a 9th grader at Centennial High School in the Frisco Independent School District
    • Ronita Shukla from Acton, Massachusetts, an 8th grader at RJ Grey Junior High School in the Acton Boxborough Regional School District
    • Rithvik Suren from Ellington, Connecticut, a 9th grader at Academy of Aerospace & Engineering in the CREC School District
    • Hanna Suzuki from Bedford, Massachusetts, a 9th grader at Bedford High School in the Bedford School District 

    “Discovery Education is incredibly proud to support student innovation over the past 17 years through the 3M Young Scientist Challenge,” said Amy Nakamoto, Executive Vice President of Corporate Partnerships at Discovery Education. “It is more important than ever that future generations are given the tools needed to tackle real-world problems. Each remarkable participant has embodied the curiosity that will fuel these discoveries, and we congratulate them all.” 

    In its 17th year, the 3M Young Scientist Challenge continues to inspire and challenge middle school students to think creatively and apply the power of STEM to discover real-world solutions. America’s Top Young Scientists have gone on to give TED Talks, file patents, found nonprofits, make the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, and exhibit at the White House Science Fair. These young innovators have also been named TIME Magazine’s Kid of the Year, featured in The New York Times Magazine, Forbes, and Business Insider, and have appeared on national television programs such as Good Morning America, The Kelly Clarkson Show, and more. In addition, a 3M Young Scientist Challenge Alumni Network was formed in fall 2022 and welcomed more than 100 former challenge finalists and winners for networking opportunities.  

    The award-winning competition supplements the 3M and Discovery Education program Young Scientist Lab, which provides free dynamic digital resources for students, teachers, and families to explore, transform, and innovate the world around them. All its resources are also available on Discovery Education Experience, the company’s award-winning K-12 learning platform.  

    To download images from the 2024 science competition, click here. To learn more about the 3M Young Scientist Challenge and meet this year’s winners and finalists, visit youngscientistlab.com.  

    About 3M 
    3M (NYSE: MMM) believes science helps create a brighter world for everyone. By unlocking the power of people, ideas and science to reimagine what’s possible, our global team uniquely addresses the opportunities and challenges of our customers, communities, and planet. Learn how we’re working to improve lives and make what’s next at 3M.com/news. 

    About Discovery Education 
    Discovery Education is the worldwide edtech leader whose state-of-the-art digital platform supports learning wherever it takes place. Through its award-winning multimedia content, instructional supports, innovative classroom tools, and corporate partnerships, Discovery Education helps educators deliver equitable learning experiences engaging all students and supporting higher academic achievement on a global scale. Discovery Education serves approximately 4.5 million educators and 45 million students worldwide, and its resources are accessed in over 100 countries and territories. Inspired by the global media company Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. Discovery Education partners with districts, states, and trusted organizations to empower teachers with leading edtech solutions that support the success of all learners. Explore the future of education at www.discoveryeducation.com. 

    eSchool News Staff
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    ESchool News Staff

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  • 5 ways online coding programs prep students for success

    5 ways online coding programs prep students for success

    Key points:

    When our middle school started offering a robotics course to its students this year, it was a pretty big deal. I’d used a gamified coding platform in my previous district and figured it would be a good fit for my new school.

    During COVID, the platform provided a virtual option so students could still participate in robotics, and I’ve been using it ever since. Even though it was a hard year to do anything in person, the computer science and coding platform helped keep our students interested in robotics.

    I was also familiar with the vendor’s robotics competitions and felt they would enrich the robotics program we wanted to start here. When I took this position, we didn’t really have anything related to robotics, so we were looking for ways to get students in eighth grade into a CTE pathway.

    The plan has worked out very well so far. Here are five ways our gamified coding and robotics platform is helping to prepare students for success in college and the work world:

    1. Aligns with state standards. Texas has adopted curriculum standards that are used in all the state’s public schools. Adopted by the State Board of Education, the current Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) standards outline what students will learn in each course/grade. With full alignment to the revised TEKS for Technology Applications and robust teacher support for interdisciplinary lessons, the CoderZ courses make it easy for educators to integrate computer science into core subject learning and give teachers the resources they need to build a strong foundation for technical and engineering career pathways.

      2. Flexible curriculum that integrates with other platforms. We’re currently using the provider’s Cyber Robotics 101 and 102 along with the physical Lego SPIKE education kits. The coding is in Blockly, and students can also use Python LEGO. We’re just getting our feet wet with robotics instruction and planning to make wider use of the computer science and coding platform in the near future. We use the platform in conjunction with LEGO, because the two function similarly, and emphasize our robotics course. Those two platforms hit our TEKS standards, so we’re using them together.

      3. Gives students real-world knowledge and experience. The robotics course is currently an elective offered to students in eighth grade and includes lessons and pathways that students must follow in order to collect energy cells. We’re using that to help us teach them about compliance with safety guidelines and how to stay safe when you’re dealing with hazardous materials. For example, students have to consider whether it’s going to be safe for a human to carry a cylinder of acid from point A to point B, or not. If they program this robot to carry it from one location to another location, and dispose of it properly, students learn that a robot can safely manage the task without putting a human being in harm’s way.

      4. Meets students where they are. We really like the platform’s student-paced learning, and how it easily adapts to individual students’ needs and capabilities. One new student who had no prior experience with coding or robotics–and who was coming from a different school–was able to jump into the robotics class and start learning right away. Concurrently, the teacher was able to continue the lesson for the rest of the class, all while that student caught up via a self-paced program.

      5. A turnkey platform that’s easy for teachers to learn and use. Our platform offers a turnkey computer science and coding platform that shepherds students through the learning process. It’s mostly hands-off for the teachers. With every single lesson, the student does the programming and, if it’s done correctly, they get the credit and move on to the next part of that lesson. It’s that easy. Teachers can also set up the platform’s curriculum differently based on the students’ needs, including a purely chronological sequence (from 1 to 15) or one that allows them to complete the lessons in any sequence that they’d like.

      Start small, grow as you go

      Going forward, we plan to encourage students to work a bit faster in the program in order to get through both Robotics 101 and 102 before they graduate. This will help set them up for success as they enter high school. I’d tell other districts that are just getting started with their own robotics and coding programs to start small and to avoid biting off more than they can chew. That’s why we opted to use our online provider’s Cyber Robotics 101 and 102 first, with a plan to add more coursework in the future.

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    Hunter McConnell, Jacksonville ISD

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  • Sandra Day O’Connor Institute Spotlights Civic Education Through Youth Programs

    Sandra Day O’Connor Institute Spotlights Civic Education Through Youth Programs

    Civics Challenge and Ambassadors Opportunities Open Now for Middle and High Schoolers


    PHOENIX, September 17, 2024 (Newswire.com)
    –
    Do you have a middle or high school student looking for more ways to get involved and impact their community? The Sandra Day O’Connor Institute for American Democracy invites students from across the country to participate in two youth programs: the national online Civics Challenge for grades 6 through 12 and the O’Connor Institute Ambassadors Civic and Debate Club, a free online program for 9th-12th graders. The Club offers students a one-of-a-kind civil discourse experience and civics education throughout the school year.

    The Civics Challenge is an online civics competition for grades 6 through 12. Participants are challenged to choose one civics topic and express their knowledge through various art forms. Categories include an essay, short video or original song. 

    The Civics Challenge features six topics to choose from, including the Legislative Branch, Executive Branch, Judicial Branch, Citizenship: Rights & Responsibilities, Checks & Balances, and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Five finalists in each division, middle school (6-8) and high school (9-12), will be awarded $500 cash prizes for a total of $5,000 in support of civic education. Entries may be submitted through Friday, Jan. 10, 2025. Winners will be announced in February 2025. 

    The O’Connor Institute Ambassadors Civic and Debate Club began its 2024 season on Sept. 12. Students may sign up for this virtual club through Jan. 31, 2025. The program includes distinguished guest speakers at every level of government, an online discussion environment, and opportunities to engage and interact with peers nationwide. This year’s club runs through April 2025. 

    High school senior Ambassadors may also meet graduation cord requirements and have the opportunity to compete for a $5,000 scholarship. 

    For more information on these and other Institute programs, please visit OConnorInstitute.org.

    About Sandra Day O’Connor Institute for American Democracy

    Founded in 2009 by retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the O’Connor Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan 501(c)(3), continues her distinguished legacy and lifetime work to advance American democracy through multigenerational civil discourse, civic engagement, and civics education. Visit OConnorInstitute.org to learn more.

    Source: Sandra Day O’Connor Institute for American Democracy

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  • 3 tips to combat chronic absenteeism in high schools

    3 tips to combat chronic absenteeism in high schools

    Key points:

    One surefire way to support student success? Consistent, positive family communication.

    In elementary school, there’s frequent outreach. A recent report found that this wanes somewhat throughout middle school, and, by the time students reach high school, many schools subscribe to the belief that the need for school-to-home communication diminishes. The prevailing notion is that high school students are learning to be independent, therefore their home adults should be less involved.

    However, data reveals a sobering reality: chronic absenteeism rates are highest in high school, with approximately one in three students missing at least 10 percent of their school days. This alarming trend jeopardizes students’ academic achievement, graduation prospects, and life outcomes. Dropping out of high school is linked to poorer health outcomes, significantly fewer opportunities in the labor market, and an increased likelihood of entering the criminal justice system.

    Given the numbers, the idea that communication becomes less crucial as students age is counter-intuitive. In fact, maintaining consistent and tailored communication channels is pivotal during adolescence. Teenagers face numerous challenges–academic pressures, social dynamics, identity exploration–that can contribute to disengagement and absenteeism. Hedy Chang, executive director of Attendance Works, connects the high levels of chronic absenteeism to a broken connection between students and school.

    One essential mechanism for repairing that connection is family communication. Here are some ideas for how to rebuild the relationship between home and school appropriate for high school students.

    Leverage multiple communication channels

    While traditional methods like newsletters and parent-teacher conferences remain valuable, incorporating popular technologies such as text messaging, social media, and mobile apps can enhance engagement and reach students and families where they are.

    A recent study on adolescent loneliness suggests that light-touch, low-cost interventions focused on attendance can pay dividends. Strategies like sending families statistics about the impacts of absenteeism and collaboratively developing attendance plans have proven effective. These types of targeted communication efforts empower families as partners in prioritizing consistent attendance.

    Tailor messaging to student interests

    Rather than generic communications, personalize messages to align with students’ interests, goals, and aspirations. This increases relevance and demonstrates that the school understands and values each student’s unique perspectives.

    Data shows many students have untapped talents in high-demand fields–but lack exposure. Facilitating “Career-Connected Learning” through communication with industry and community partners is a great way to make school immediately relevant to high school students. Coordinating job shadowing, internships, and career exploration activities exposes students to inspiring futures worth attending school for daily. When they see a clear path from classroom to career, attendance improves.

    Communication should never be a one-way street. Create opportunities for students and families to provide feedback, share concerns, and actively participate in decision-making processes that affect their educational experiences. Ensure that communications are culturally responsive and inclusive, acknowledging and celebrating the diversity within the school community. One crucial way to do this is to ensure that all communications can be shared in a family’s home language.

    This helps foster a sense of belonging and strengthens the school-home connection.

    Think Multi-Tiered Systems of Support

    To combat chronic absenteeism, a tiered approach leveraging strategic communication is ideal.

    At Tier 1, implementing universal data tracking systems enables early identification of attendance patterns, allowing for proactive, personalized outreach before issues escalate. Positive messaging campaigns that tout the benefits of coming to school and promote engaging programs inspire students to attend.

    For moderately chronically absent students (Tier 2), conducting individualized meetings and offering mentorship facilitates open dialogue to understand the root causes of attendance struggles. It’s also crucial to communicate about available support resources like counseling.

    For severe chronic absenteeism cases (Tier 3), coordinated two-way communication between schools and families builds trust. Schools can connect them with vital services–such as mental health counseling and transportation assistance–to overcome significant barriers to attendance.

    Students engaged through inclusive dialogue feel supported and empowered to overcome hurdles preventing daily attendance. By prioritizing consistent, personalized, and career-minded communication at all tier levels, high schools can combat alarming chronic absenteeism rates.

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    Dr. Kara Stern, SchoolStatus

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  • Teacher at Mountain View school arrested on suspicion of inappropriate conduct with a student

    Teacher at Mountain View school arrested on suspicion of inappropriate conduct with a student

    A teacher at a Mountain View school was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of inappropriately touching a student, according to a news release by Mountain View police.

    Nollyanne Delacruz

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  • PROOF POINTS: Writing researcher finds AI feedback ‘better than I thought’

    PROOF POINTS: Writing researcher finds AI feedback ‘better than I thought’

    Researchers from the University of California, Irvine, and Arizona State University found that human feedback was generally a bit better than AI feedback, but AI was surprisingly good. Credit: Getty Images

    This week I challenged my editor to face off against a machine. Barbara Kantrowitz gamely accepted, under one condition: “You have to file early.”  Ever since ChatGPT arrived in 2022, many journalists have made a public stunt out of asking the new generation of artificial intelligence to write their stories. Those AI stories were often bland and sprinkled with errors. I wanted to understand how well ChatGPT handled a different aspect of writing: giving feedback.

    My curiosity was piqued by a new study, published in the June 2024 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Learning and Instruction, that evaluated the quality of ChatGPT’s feedback on students’ writing. A team of researchers compared AI with human feedback on 200 history essays written by students in grades 6 through 12 and they determined that human feedback was generally a bit better. Humans had a particular advantage in advising students on something to work on that would be appropriate for where they are in their development as a writer. 

    But ChatGPT came close. On a five-point scale that the researchers used to rate feedback quality, with a 5 being the highest quality feedback, ChatGPT averaged a 3.6 compared with a 4.0 average from a team of 16 expert human evaluators. It was a tough challenge. Most of these humans had taught writing for more than 15 years or they had considerable experience in writing instruction. All received three hours of training for this exercise plus extra pay for providing the feedback.

    ChatGPT even beat these experts in one aspect; it was slightly better at giving feedback on students’ reasoning, argumentation and use of evidence from source materials – the features that the researchers had wanted the writing evaluators to focus on.

    “It was better than I thought it was going to be because I didn’t have a lot of hope that it was going to be that good,” said Steve Graham, a well-regarded expert on writing instruction at Arizona State University, and a member of the study’s research team. “It wasn’t always accurate. But sometimes it was right on the money. And I think we’ll learn how to make it better.”

    Average ratings for the quality of ChatGPT and human feedback on 200 student essays

    Researchers rated the quality of the feedback on a five-point scale across five different categories. Criteria-based refers to whether the feedback addressed the main goals of the writing assignment, in this case, to produce a well-reasoned argument about history using evidence from the reading source materials that the students were given. Clear directions mean whether the feedback included specific examples of something the student did well and clear directions for improvement. Accuracy means whether the feedback advice was correct without errors. Essential Features refer to whether the suggestion on what the student should work on next is appropriate for where the student is in his writing development and is an important element of this genre of writing. Supportive Tone refers to whether the feedback is delivered with language that is affirming, respectful and supportive, as opposed to condescending, impolite or authoritarian. (Source: Fig. 1 of Steiss et al, “Comparing the quality of human and ChatGPT feedback of students’ writing,” Learning and Instruction, June 2024.)

    Exactly how ChatGPT is able to give good feedback is something of a black box even to the writing researchers who conducted this study. Artificial intelligence doesn’t comprehend things in the same way that humans do. But somehow, through the neural networks that ChatGPT’s programmers built, it is picking up on patterns from all the writing it has previously digested, and it is able to apply those patterns to a new text. 

    The surprising “relatively high quality” of ChatGPT’s feedback is important because it means that the new artificial intelligence of large language models, also known as generative AI, could potentially help students improve their writing. One of the biggest problems in writing instruction in U.S. schools is that teachers assign too little writing, Graham said, often because teachers feel that they don’t have the time to give personalized feedback to each student. That leaves students without sufficient practice to become good writers. In theory, teachers might be willing to assign more writing or insist on revisions for each paper if students (or teachers) could use ChatGPT to provide feedback between drafts. 

    Despite the potential, Graham isn’t an enthusiastic cheerleader for AI. “My biggest fear is that it becomes the writer,” he said. He worries that students will not limit their use of ChatGPT to helpful feedback, but ask it to do their thinking, analyzing and writing for them. That’s not good for learning. The research team also worries that writing instruction will suffer if teachers delegate too much feedback to ChatGPT. Seeing students’ incremental progress and common mistakes remain important for deciding what to teach next, the researchers said. For example, seeing loads of run-on sentences in your students’ papers might prompt a lesson on how to break them up. But if you don’t see them, you might not think to teach it. Another common concern among writing instructors is that AI feedback will steer everyone to write in the same homogenized way. A young writer’s unique voice could be flattened out before it even has the chance to develop.

    There’s also the risk that students may not be interested in heeding AI feedback. Students often ignore the painstaking feedback that their teachers already give on their essays. Why should we think students will pay attention to feedback if they start getting more of it from a machine? 

    Still, Graham and his research colleagues at the University of California, Irvine, are continuing to study how AI could be used effectively and whether it ultimately improves students’ writing. “You can’t ignore it,” said Graham. “We either learn to live with it in useful ways, or we’re going to be very unhappy with it.”

    Right now, the researchers are studying how students might converse back-and-forth with ChatGPT like a writing coach in order to understand the feedback and decide which suggestions to use.

    Example of feedback from a human and ChatGPT on the same essay

    Source: Steiss et al, “Comparing the quality of human and ChatGPT feedback of students’ writing,” Learning and Instruction, June 2024.

    In the current study, the researchers didn’t track whether students understood or employed the feedback, but only sought to measure its quality. Judging the quality of feedback is a rather subjective exercise, just as feedback itself is a bundle of subjective judgment calls. Smart people can disagree on what good writing looks like and how to revise bad writing. 

    In this case, the research team came up with its own criteria for what constitutes good feedback on a history essay. They instructed the humans to focus on the student’s reasoning and argumentation, rather than, say, grammar and punctuation.  They also told the human raters to adopt a “glow and grow strategy” for delivering the feedback by first finding something to praise, then identifying a particular area for improvement. 

    The human raters provided this kind of feedback on hundreds of history essays from 2021 to 2023, as part of an unrelated study of an initiative to boost writing at school. The researchers randomly grabbed 200 of these essays and fed the raw student writing – without the human feedback – to version 3.5 of ChatGPT and asked it to give feedback, too. 

    At first, the AI feedback was terrible, but as the researchers tinkered with the instructions, or the “prompt,” they typed into ChatGPT, the feedback improved. The researchers eventually settled upon this wording: “Pretend you are a secondary school teacher. Provide 2-3 pieces of specific, actionable feedback on each of the following essays…. Use a friendly and encouraging tone.” The researchers also fed the assignment that the students were given, for example, “Why did the Montgomery Bus Boycott succeed?” along with the reading source material that the students were provided. (More details about how the researchers prompted ChatGPT are explained in Appendix C of the study.)

    The humans took about 20 to 25 minutes per essay. ChatGPT’s feedback came back instantly. The humans sometimes marked up sentences by, for example, showing a place where the student could have cited a source to buttress an argument. ChatGPT didn’t write any in-line comments and only wrote a note to the student. 

    Researchers then read through both sets of feedback – human and machine – for each essay, comparing and rating them. (It was supposed to be a blind comparison test and the feedback raters were not told who authored each one. However, the language and tone of ChatGPT were distinct giveaways, and the in-line comments were a tell of human feedback.)

    Humans appeared to have a clear edge with the very strongest and the very weakest writers, the researchers found. They were better at pushing a strong writer a little bit further, for example, by suggesting that the student consider and address a counterargument. ChatGPT struggled to come up with ideas for a student who was already meeting the objectives of a well-argued essay with evidence from the reading source materials. ChatGPT also struggled with the weakest writers. The researchers had to drop two of the essays from the study because they were so short that ChatGPT didn’t have any feedback for the student. The human rater was able to parse out some meaning from a brief, incomplete sentence and offer a suggestion. 

    In one student essay about the Montgomery Bus Boycott, reprinted above, the human feedback seemed too generic to me: “Next time, I would love to see some evidence from the sources to help back up your claim.” ChatGPT, by contrast, specifically suggested that the student could have mentioned how much revenue the bus company lost during the boycott – an idea that was mentioned in the student’s essay. ChatGPT also suggested that the student could have mentioned specific actions that the NAACP and other organizations took. But the student had actually mentioned a few of these specific actions in his essay. That part of ChatGPT’s feedback was plainly inaccurate. 

    In another student writing example, also reprinted below, the human straightforwardly pointed out that the student had gotten an historical fact wrong. ChatGPT appeared to affirm that the student’s mistaken version of events was correct.

    Another example of feedback from a human and ChatGPT on the same essay

    Source: Steiss et al, “Comparing the quality of human and ChatGPT feedback of students’ writing,” Learning and Instruction, June 2024.

    So how did ChatGPT’s review of my first draft stack up against my editor’s? One of the researchers on the study team suggested a prompt that I could paste into ChatGPT. After a few back and forth questions with the chatbot about my grade level and intended audience, it initially spit out some generic advice that had little connection to the ideas and words of my story. It seemed more interested in format and presentation, suggesting a summary at the top and subheads to organize the body. One suggestion would have made my piece too long-winded. Its advice to add examples of how AI feedback might be beneficial was something that I had already done. I then asked for specific things to change in my draft, and ChatGPT came back with some great subhead ideas. I plan to use them in my newsletter, which you can see if you sign up for it here. (And if you want to see my prompt and dialogue with ChatGPT, here is the link.) 

    My human editor, Barbara, was the clear winner in this round. She tightened up my writing, fixed style errors and helped me brainstorm this ending. Barbara’s job is safe – for now. 

    This story about AI feedback was written by Jill Barshay and produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Proof Points and other Hechinger newsletters.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

    Jill Barshay

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  • Cohoes assistant superintendent hit in the face, resigns

    Cohoes assistant superintendent hit in the face, resigns

    COHOES, N.Y. (NEWS10) – An emergency board meeting was held at Cohoes Middle School on Wednesday evening to accept the resignation of James P. Stapleton, the district’s facilities director, who is accused of punching Assistant Superintendent Dan Martinelli on school property in April.

    Assistant Superintendent Dan Martinelli has submitted his resignation from the Cohoes City School District following an alleged assault by James P. Stapleton, the district’s facilities director, who is facing charges of third degree assault and harassment for the incident.

    The altercation occurred on April 16th at the district’s headquarters on Page Avenue. According to police reports, Stapleton allegedly punched Martinelli in the face and threw him into filing cabinets, causing minor injuries.

    Martinelli, despite the assault, chose not to retaliate and reported the incident to district officials. “It is with a heavy heart that I leave the district,” Martinelli stated, expressing disappointment in the handling of the incident and, what he described as the lack of appropriate action taken by the district.

    Sara Burwell, Martinelli’s assistant, also resigned, citing a troubling workplace encounter with Stapleton shortly before the alleged assault. 

    “I believe my testimony is crucial to this investigation,” Burwell wrote in a letter to Superintendent Peggy O’Shea, expressing frustration over the attorney for the district declining to interview her.

    Burwell’s sister spoke at the school board meeting, “What I was reading in there, was my own personal beliefs,” she said, “I wanted the board to know. I wasn’t sure if anybody was aware…If anybody read my sister’s statement about what happened.”

    “I think we all have a standard for how we want to be treated, and this violated my standard,” explained Martinelli. 

    The incident has sparked broader conversations about workplace safety within the district, teachers at the meeting saying they no longer feel safe at school.

    “Somehow, an employee was assaulted by another employee,” said faculty member John Skeets, “the assaulter, as far as I know, was not reprimanded”.

    Laura Taglianetti

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  • Pasadena reels from Tesla crash that left 3 dead, 3 injured

    Pasadena reels from Tesla crash that left 3 dead, 3 injured

    Pasadena is reeling from a violent car crash over the weekend that left three young adults dead and three other young people badly injured.

    The victims, whose ages range from 17 to 22, all had roots in the City of Roses.

    A memorial of flowers and candles assembled near a ruined building in east Pasadena marked the spot where the car’s driver crashed his Tesla after hitting a nearby curb at more than 100 mph just before 2:30 a.m. Saturday.

    The driver and two passengers died in the crash, and three more passengers were hospitalized with serious injuries, according to authorities.

    By Monday morning, the memorial outside the unoccupied building on East Foothill Boulevard was replete with votive candles, a soccer ball and shoe, flowers and a pair of leather notebooks in which friends and family members could leave messages.

    It’s where 20-year-old Sergio Nava laid a bouquet of flowers for his friend Stephan Michael “Mike” Pfeiffer, whom he met in middle school at Marshall Fundamental Secondary School in Pasadena. They talked almost every day, and Nava thinks that if the circumstances were different — if maybe Nava hadn’t been scheduled to work Saturday at a local Ralphs supermarket — he could have been in the car with his friend.

    “I know he’s in a better place now and he’s looking down on us,” Nava said, placing the flowers.

    Pfeiffer, 20, was from Pasadena, according to the Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office. The other two persons killed were a man in his 20s, whose name has not been released pending notification to his family, and Mohed Reda Samuel, 22, from Pasadena.

    Samuel was the driver of the white, 5-seat Tesla Model 3 that was heading west on Foothill Boulevard when it appeared to have lost control navigating a bend in the road. It hit a curb and launched into the air, according to Lt. Anthony Russo with the Pasadena Police Department.

    The car probably soared more than 130 feet before it collided with a utility pole and the building, Russo said.

    The cause of the crash remains under investigation, but based on preliminary information, it does not appear that the vehicle malfunctioned, according to Russo. The county medical examiner’s office will perform a toxicology test to determine if drugs or alcohol were a factor in the crash.

    Samuel and the passenger in the front seat died at the scene, while three out of the four rear passengers were thrown from the vehicle during the crash, Russo said. The fourth passenger remained in the vehicle because they were wearing their seat belt.

    One of the passengers thrown from the vehicle died, and two others were transported to a local hospital along with the survivor who remained in the vehicle’s back seat, Russo said. All three passengers are expected to survive, according to authorities.

    Maranatha High School in Pasadena released a statement about the crash because some of the victims involved were students at the private Christian school. Grief counselors were being made available to the school and community, according to the statement posted to Facebook on Sunday.

    The school asked the public to respect the privacy of the families whose loved ones were involved in the crash.

    “We are deeply saddened by this weekend’s tragic car accident that claimed precious young lives. We mourn this immense loss and extend our heartfelt condolences to the families and loved ones of all those affected,” the statement said. “During this difficult time, we turn to our faith in Christ Jesus for comfort and strength and ask others to join us in praying for all who are suffering due to this tragedy.”

    On Monday morning, a student wearing a Maranatha sweater approached the memorial and left flowers. Pieces of the Tesla remained strewn about the street and sidewalk.

    A large gash in the sidewalk spoke of where the vehicle went airborne, and another large scratch on the ground at a nearby corner showed where the Tesla eventually came to rest.

    Among the items at the memorial was a skateboard propped on the handles of the ruined building’s door with the name “Mike” scratched onto the board’s deck.

    “He was a humble guy and he didn’t like to show off. He was just very sweet to his grandfather and grandmother,” Nava said. Pfeiffer had taken care of his grandfather until his grandfather’s death, and was living with his grandmother at the time of the accident, according to Nava.

    Nava said his friend was a skateboarder who studied kinesiology at Pasadena City College. Pfeiffer had planned to change his major, but remained undecided about what to study next.

    “I guess we’ll never know,” Nava said as he picked up one of the notebooks to write a message for his friend. Pfeiffer would have been 21 this July, according to Nava.

    A GoFundMe campaign has been started to help pay for Pfeiffer’s funeral services.

    Nathan Solis

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  • ‘Alarming’: Mass. middle school asks parents for help as students terrorize Shaw’s grocery store

    ‘Alarming’: Mass. middle school asks parents for help as students terrorize Shaw’s grocery store


    A Massachusetts middle school sent a letter to parents on Monday asking them for help as dozens of students have been terrorizing a local grocery store on days when they are dismissed from class early, building forts out of paper towels and toppling displays, educators said.

    “Over the weekend, I was contacted by the director of Shaw’s Market, who shared alarming information regarding a troubling trend involving our middle school students who visit Shaw’s on half days,” Medway Middle School Principal Amanda Luizzi wrote in an email to parents.

    Educators said about 100 students have been visiting Shaw’s at 65 Main Street on half days, wreaking havoc inside the store as customers try to shop.

    “It was reported that a growing number of students are engaging in disruptive behavior while visiting the store. This includes building ‘forts’ out of paper towels, riding in carriages and electric carts, knocking over displays, and even stealing merchandise,” Luizzi wrote. “These actions pose a risk to the students involved and customers of Shaw’s. They also reflect poorly on our school community.”

    In a statement shared with Boston 25 News, a spokesperson for the West Bridgewater-based grocery chain also said that the disruptive behaviors have been “negatively impacting” the customer shopping experience.

    “Shaw’s strives to provide all of our customers a safe and welcoming shopping experience. Because of the close proximity of our Medway store to the local school, large groups of students have been visiting the store,” the spokesperson said. “Unfortunately, a group of these students engaged in disruptive behaviors that negatively impacted other customers’ shopping experiences.”

    Luizzi stressed in the letter to parents that it’s important that students act respectfully when in public and asked them to speak with their children.

    “I am asking all families to partner with the school and have a conversation with their children about the importance of respectful behavior – in Shaw’s, in any business in the Plaza, and school,” Luizzi added. “Please also speak with students about the potential consequences of their actions should this behavior continue.”

    As of Tuesday, Shaw’s said it had not implemented a ban on students entering its Medway store.

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  • When embracing the ‘science of reading,’ we can’t leave out older students

    When embracing the ‘science of reading,’ we can’t leave out older students

    Each year, we share our 10 most-read stories. Not surprisingly, many of this year’s Top 10 focused on equity, edtech innovation, immersive learning, and the science of reading. This year’s 6th most-read story focuses on the science of reading for older students.

    This story was originally published by Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for our free New York newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.

    The day before my first day of teaching middle school in 2018, I decorated my Brooklyn public school classroom with quotes from famous people reflecting on the importance of reading. Hanging on cream-colored cardstock were the words of Malcolm X, Toni Morrison, C.S. Lewis, Barack Obama, Maya Angelou, and dozens of other writers and thinkers. I hoped to inspire my students to fall in love with reading. I didn’t think to hope that all my students could do the very thing I was asking them to love. I didn’t know that part of my job as a sixth grade Humanities teacher would be to teach students to read in the first place.

    There was a round table in the very back of my classroom that a group of five sixth-graders bee-lined to on day one. On day two, I asked one, then another, to read aloud to me. My request was met with silence, guessing, a fist slammed on the table, and a student storming out of the room. When those sixth grade students finally sat down for a reading assessment, their ability to decode print text was at a first or second grade level.

    As a newly minted middle school English teacher, I was shocked by the number of students who entered my classroom unable to decode text. As I got to know them, I saw that herculean efforts to mask their reading disabilities revealed intelligence, determination, and traumatic relationships to school.

    Since my first year of teaching, I have dedicated a lot of time to understanding why that happened. With the toxic combination of inaccurate reading assessments and a whole-word approach that encouraged guessing rather than decoding, the Matthew Effect (rich get richer, poor get poorer) has been in full swing in middle schools all around the country. The children who lived in text-rich environments and/or with families who could afford supplemental private tutoring got to “get it.” And those who didn’t? Many never acquired the literacy skills that are tied to power and privilege in this country.

    Since my first day of teaching middle school, the “science of reading” — tying reading proficiency to explicit phonics instruction in addition to comprehension work—became a catchphrase for Facebook groups, professional development, and curricula. Lucy Calkins revised her popular but widely criticized “Units of Study” curriculum to include phonics-focused lessons. “Sold a Story,” a podcast series investigating reading instruction, became one of the top podcasts of the year. I also got trained in Wilson Reading Systems, an Orton-Gillingham and multisensory approach to teaching the basic phonics instruction many of my middle school students never received.

    In my experience, conversations about the science of reading are happening primarily with elementary and early childhood educators. Those conversations are preventing further literacy injustice and disenfranchisement. But how are we addressing the ways that the system has failed our secondary students when they first learned to read? How can I, a middle school ELA teacher, support the students in my class who were passed along without receiving the literacy instruction they needed?

    I am worried that secondary students and secondary education as a whole are being left out of the conversation on how children learn to read. It’s wonderful that (finally!) we are getting to the root of the issue, but what about the young people for whom Tier I instruction comes too late? What about students who, from here on out, will need intensive intervention in order to get on grade level?

    My former sixth graders are in high school now, preparing for college and careers, but the best preparation they can get is one that helps them, once and for all, become fluent readers. I am concerned that among the excitement of elementary curriculum overhauls, we will leave the children who’ve been wronged even further behind. I am afraid that we’ll do to them what this country has done to people who struggle with literacy since its inception: disenfranchise, hide, and erase.

    During that first year of teaching middle school, when I was shocked by the students in my class that struggled to sound out single-syllable words, who guessed based on the first two letters rather than sound out, and who, upon hearing they’d do partner reading, developed looks of panic in their eyes, I found hope in literacy intervention programs targeting adolescents who lacked key skills.

    I want more for these students. I want every secondary educator to be trained in not just teaching kids about reading; I want them to be trained to teach their students to read, should one or two or 10 sit down in the back of their class and not know how.

    I believe in the power of restorative literacy. Every day, I work with adolescents and pre-adolescents who have slipped through the massive cracks of our education system. What I have witnessed during my five years working in vastly different types of schools is that learning, achievement, and opportunity gaps either dramatically widen or dramatically close in middle school. Passion for social justice within our education systems is insufficient; the actual work — the literacy work — that makes change possible needs to occur.

    Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

    Related:
    How to improve literacy through the science of reading
    4 keys to teaching the science of reading in a virtual setting
    For more news on literacy, visit eSN’s Innovative Teaching page

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    Shira Engel, Chalkbeat New York

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  • The pandemic is over–but American schools still aren’t the same

    The pandemic is over–but American schools still aren’t the same

    This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.

    On a recent Friday at Gary Comer Middle School in Chicago, you had to squint to see signs of the pandemic that upended American education just a few years ago.

    Only a handful of students wore face masks, and even then, some put them on to cover up pimples, staff said. The hand sanitizer stations outside every classroom mostly went unused, and some were empty. Students stopped to hug in the hallway and ate lunch side by side in the cafeteria. 

    “I don’t think it’s a big deal as much as it was before,” said 12-year-old Evelyn Harris, an eighth grader at Comer, whose lasting memory of pandemic schooling is that online classes were easier, so she got better grades. “The pandemic didn’t really affect me in a big way.”

    But inside Nikhil Bhatia’s classroom, the evidence was on the whiteboard, where the math teacher was shading in slices of a pie to illustrate how to find a common denominator. That day, his seventh graders were working to add and subtract fractions — a skill students usually learn in fourth grade.

    Maybe you learned this before, Bhatia began. “Or, during the pandemic, you might have been on Zoom,” — a few students laughed as he dragged out the words — “put your screen on black, went to go play a couple video games. Snap if that sounds familiar?”

    Clicking fingers filled the room. “That’s OK!” Bhatia responded. “That’s why we’re going to do the review.”

    As the new school year begins at Comer and elsewhere, many students and educators say school is feeling more normal than it has in over three years. COVID health precautions have all but vanished. There’s less social awkwardness. Students say they’re over the novelty of seeing their classmates in person.

    But beneath the surface, profound pandemic-era consequences persist. More students are missing school, and educators are scrambling to keep kids engaged in class. Many students remain behind academically, leaving teachers like Bhatia to fill in gaps even while trying to move students forward. Rebuilding students’ shaken confidence in their abilities is especially important right now.

    “It’s OK that you don’t know this,” Bhatia tells his students. “It’s normal right now.”

    Nationally, many students remain far behind in math and reading where they would have been if not for the pandemic. There have been especially steep learning drops at schools that taught virtually for most of the 2020-21 school year, as schools did across Chicago and within the Noble charter network, which includes Comer. It’s an issue that’s even more pressing for older students, who have less time to fill in those holes.

    At Comer, 28% of eighth graders met or exceeded Illinois math standards the year before the pandemic, not far off from the state’s average of 33%. But by spring 2022, that had fallen to just 2%, compared with 23% for the state. 

    In reading, meanwhile, 9% of Comer eighth graders met or exceeded state standards pre-pandemic, and that dipped to 4% in spring 2022, when the state’s average was 30%. 

    The school made gains they’re proud of last school year, with 10% of eighth graders hitting the state’s bar for math and 22% hitting it for reading, though school leaders say they know there is still work to be done.

    “If you don’t have some foundational skills and basic skills, it will be almost impossible to keep up with the curriculum as the kids get older,” said Mary Avalos, a research professor of teaching and learning at the University of Miami, who has studied how COVID affected middle school teachers. “That’s a big issue that needs to be addressed.”

    How teachers are addressing pandemic learning gaps

    Most of Bhatia’s students missed key skills in fourth and fifth grades — the years that school was remote, then interrupted by waves of COVID — but they mastered more advanced concepts in sixth grade last year.

    That’s left Bhatia, like many teachers across the country, with the tricky task of coming up with mini lessons to fill in those elementary gaps, without spending so much time on prior concepts that students fall behind in middle school.

    On a day like Friday, that meant to get students ready to add negative fractions, a seventh grade skill, Bhatia first had to teach a short lesson on adding fractions, a fourth grade skill. At first, some students mistakenly thought they should use the technique for dividing fractions they learned last year.

    “They’ll say: ‘Oh is this keep, change, flip’?” Bhatia said. “The gap isn’t exactly what you would expect it to be.” 

    This kind of teaching happened “once in a while” pre-pandemic, Bhatia said, but “now it’s like day by day I have to be really critical in thinking about: ‘OK what might be the gap that surfaces today?’”

    Aubria Myers, who teaches sixth grade English at Comer, sees ways the familiar rhythms of school are just now returning, four months after federal health officials declared an official end to the COVID-19 emergency.

    “This year, for me, feels the most normal,” Myers said. Students are saying: “Oh wait, what’s the homework again, can I get another copy?” she said. Last year when she mentioned homework, “they were like: ‘What is that?’”

    On that recent Friday, Myers led an activity in her multicultural literature class that would have been impossible two years ago when students had to stay seated in pods of color-coded desks. 

    Her sixth graders huddled close to one another as they tried to hop across the classroom, an exercise designed to give her fidgety students a chance to move around, while exemplifying the communication and teamwork skills that would be at the center of Seedfolks, the novel they were about to read in class.

    Still, Myers had chosen the book, with its short chapters and lines full of metaphors and irony, to meet the needs of this crop of sixth graders, who spent all of third grade learning online. Many, Myers knows, never logged on. They have shorter attention spans and doubts about their reading skills but love class discussions, she said.

    “They remember that time in their life when they were stuck talking to only people in their house,” Myers said. “They’re in class wanting to engage with each other.”

    Myers has tried to prevent her students from getting discouraged by their learning gaps. At the start of this school year, for example, she’s pointing out spelling and punctuation errors, but not docking points yet. She wants to make sure her students first have time to learn some of the key skills they missed in earlier grades.

    “We have kids who don’t understand how to put a period somewhere in your sentence, or how to put spaces between their words,” Myers said. “I see these very beautifully strung together ideas, these really well thought-out explanations, but they’re missing some of those key mechanics.”

    Student mental health and engagement still top of mind

    Comer has responded to students’ post-pandemic needs in other ways, too. The school expanded its team of social workers and other staff who work with students to resolve conflicts and address mental health needs, a trend that’s been observed nationwide.

    The school has long felt the effects of neighborhood gun violence and student trauma, but staff say having more adults focused on those issues has helped students open up and seek help. Now, more students are requesting verbal mediations to head off physical fights, staff say.

    “If you follow us through the building, you’ll see,” said Stephanie Williams, a former reading teacher who now directs Comer’s social and emotional learning team. “Kids will seek you out, or find you, and let you know: ‘Hey, I need this.’”

    And this is the second year the school has scheduled all core classes earlier in the week, so that students can spend part of Friday practicing math and reading skills on the computer, and the rest of the day taking two special electives. It’s a strategy meant to keep students engaged — and showing up to school.

    The school offers classes that pique students’ interests, such as the history of hip hop, hair braiding, and creative writing. Brandon Hall, a seventh grader at Comer, blended his first smoothie in a “foodies” class and bonded with his basketball coach through chess. He came to see similarities between making plays on the court and moving pawns across the board.

    “I learned a lot from him,” he said.

    On “Freedom Fridays,” attendance is higher and student conflicts are rarer, school officials say. That’s been important as the school, like many others, has seen higher chronic absenteeism rates over the last two years. At Comer, 1 in 3 sixth graders missed 18 or more days of school last year. Before the pandemic, that number sat closer to 1 in 5.

    The approach runs counter to the calls some education experts have made for schools to double down on academics and add more instructional time — not take it away. 

    A recent report by the Center on Reinventing Public Education, for example, spells out the numerous ways students are still struggling, and calls for “a greater urgency to address learning gaps before students graduate.” Harvard education researcher Thomas Kane noted that few districts have lengthened the school day or year and warned that, “The academic recovery effort following the pandemic has been undersized from the beginning.”

    But JuDonne Hemingway, the principal of Comer, said devoting time to enrichment activities during the school day is worth it to ensure all students have access to them. These classes, she added, are helping students develop interests they may pursue in college or as part of a career.

    “They’re not just random experiences for kids,” Hemingway said. “We think they are just as important as any traditional academic class.”

    Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education.

    For more news on COVID in schools, visit eSN’s Educational Leadership page.

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    Kalyn Belsha, Chalkbeat

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  • Unlocking middle school potential: Exploring career education and soft skills 

    Unlocking middle school potential: Exploring career education and soft skills 

    This episode of Innovations in Education, hosted by Kevin Hogan, is sponsored by McGraw Hill.

    In this special edition of Innovations in Education, Content Director Kevin Hogan speaks with McGraw Hill’s Patrick Keeney about various aspects of career and technical education (CTE), including its expansion beyond traditional vocational or trade-focused subjects, the importance of soft skills, and the curriculum and teaching methods used in CTE courses for middle school students.

    Patrick emphasizes the value of helping students explore different career paths and develop essential skills early in their education. The conversation also highlights the evolving nature of CTE in middle schools and its potential to provide students with a more comprehensive and purposeful educational experience.

    Kevin Hogan
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    Want to share a great resource? Let us know at submissions@eschoolmedia.com.

    Kevin Hogan

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