What's New at NCTR?
NCTR launched programming for the 2018-19 school year with our Network partner programs last week. Partners gathered to engage in goal-setting and share innovations and areas of growth. This year, NCTR’s Network will engage in data-driven learning opportunities to focus on continuous improvement, with a spotlight on Building Teacher Competency Through Practice and Improving Mentor Effectiveness. Additional learning and supports will target Sustainability, Recruitment and Selection, Strengthening Partnerships to Improve Schools and Communities, and Retaining and Improving Effective Graduates.
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Webinars and Events
Join the New Teacher Center for a webinar overview of its new Instructional Coaching Program and Practice Standards, and learn how one district used them to provide quality professional learning opportunities. The webinar is scheduled for Sept. 20 at 3 p.m.
Future Ed, a think tank at Georgetown University, is hosting a panel discussion titled, “World Class: How to Build a 21st Century School System” on Sept. 18 at 10 a.m. The panel features Andreas Schleicher of the OECD, Chris Cerf, former New Jersey commissioner of education, Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of the National Education Association, and others. The event will be livestreamed here.
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Partner Updates
Boston Plan for Excellence, which operates the Boston Teacher Residency, recently celebrated the opening of the Dearborn STEM 6-12 Early College Academy, Boston’s first school built and designed specifically for STEM learning.
The University of North Florida’s College of Education and Human Services has been awarded $283,708 from AmeriCorps for the Jacksonville Teacher Residency. The funding will support 29 graduate and undergraduate teacher candidates who will complete a service-learning residency in Duval County’s high-need schools. In addition to this program grant, more than $112,000 in college scholarships will be awarded to all who successfully complete one year of service.
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Featured News
One Quarter of Students Attend Schools Plagued by ‘Chronic Absenteeism’
Those in the teacher preparation business know the power and impact well-trained, classroom-ready teachers have on their students. Indeed, the quality of a student’s teacher is the most important school-controlled factor affecting achievement. But as any teacher will tell you, their impact is muted when students don’t show up.
A new report released by Attendance Works and the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University finds the problem of “chronic absenteeism” may be more widespread than previously noted. The report, Data Matters Using Chronic Absence to Accelerate Action for Student Success, found that 8 million students were chronically absent in the 2015-16 school year (the most recent year data is available), while one student in four attends a school with high or extreme levels of chronic absenteeism. Further, the research found that chronic absenteeism grew by 800,000 students in the 2015-16 school year compared to 2013-14, and the problem got worse in 37 out of 50 states during that stretch.
The researchers defined a student as chronically absent when they missed 15 or more school days. The report has downloadable data tables that allow users to examine absentee rates at the district and school level.
For the first time this year, states are required to track student absenteeism and publicly report it in their annual report cards under the Every Student Succeeds Act. Thirty-six states and the District of Columbia are also using absenteeism as a metric in their ESSA accountability plans.
- While one out of seven students are chronically absent, the rates vary widely by state and within states
- Nearly 52 percent of all chronically absent students are concentrated in schools with high (20-29 percent) or extreme (30 percent or higher) levels of chronic absenteeism
- It’s not just a high school problem: Slightly more elementary schools than high schools have high and extreme levels of chronic absence
- Schools with higher levels of poverty are much more likely to have extreme levels of chronic absence, and the problem disproportionately affects students of color
The report’s authors suggest districts and schools learn more about how the issue is playing out on their campuses by surveying families, conducting phone banks, studying suspension and discipline data, and by engaging with civic organizations to study transit routes, health data, and participation in early childhood programming.
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