eNews: March 22, 2023
In This Edition:
1. State-Level Proposals for High-Dosage Tutoring
2. County Parks and Rec and Libraries: Ready to Help Our Kids!
3. Parents: School Attendance Matters
4. Have a Question for APS School Board Candidates?
5. Parent Educational Portal
6. What We're Reading
7. 3/16 School Board Recap
8. Happening Soon
State-Level Proposals for High-Dosage Tutoring
A state budget amendment was proposed by Del. VanValkenburg D-Henrico that would provide $268 million in FY24 matching funds for school divisions to provide or strengthen high-dosage tutoring in math and English.
Additionally, Gov. Youngkin announced a grant program for qualifying families (family income does not exceed 300% of the federal poverty level). The plan would provide grants of up to $3,000 to cover extra educational expenses and $1,500 for all other qualifying students. As of now, this funding appears to be allocated for only one year. This program would require families to search for tutors on their own and, assuming an average cost of $50/hour, it would cover about 60 hours of tutoring.
The General Assembly will return this spring to finalize the budget.
Read more.
Email your Delegate and Senator about funding for learning loss.
County Parks and Rec and Libraries:
Ready to Help Our Kids!
Ahead of the County Board Work Session FY24 Budget Meeting on the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) and Libraries this Thursday, we urged increased attention and resources to better serve Arlington’s youth.
We agree with the many speakers at CCPTA’s recent forum that there needs to be more tailored programming for teenagers and students after school hours and on the many days off of school and on early release days. Also, the library, in particular, is well-positioned to provide academic support (e.g. reading instruction) to Arlington’s students. We strongly commend the County Board Members for their attention to these issues, and the Head Librarian and Director of Parks and Recreation for their willingness to implement new programs and communications to better reach Arlington youth.
Why It Matters: Arlington’s youth are facing severe crises which the DPR and the Libraries can help address: drug use, mental health, and low literacy levels at both secondary and elementary schools. We encourage you to reach out to the Department of Parks and Recreation, the Libraries, or us with ideas for how programming can better serve Arlington youth.
Parents: School Attendance Matters
Recent research shared by the Arlington Science Focus School principal Mary Begley via an email to parents highlights the importance of attendance at school. According to the email, chronic absenteeism can affect students' academic performance, for example, students’ ability to achieve reading benchmarks by the third grade. (On-grade-level reading by third grade is a significant predictor of future academic success.)
The email cites the below from VDOE (sourced from AAP):
Many of our youngest students miss 10 percent of the school year—about 18 days a year which is two days every month. Chronic absenteeism in first grade, kindergarten, and pre-K, is a predictor of below grade level reading. Only 17% of students with chronic absenteeism in kindergarten and first grade will read on grade level by 3rd grade. While 85% of students with high attendance are on grade level by third grade.
Why It Matters: ASFS reports seeing a concerning increase in absenteeism throughout this academic year. “Academic and Social/Emotional learning is happening every minute of the day,” according to the email. This APS principal wants parents to know: “please give students the best opportunity to learn by being present every day.”
Have a Question for Arlington School Board Candidates?
We will send a questionnaire to this year's Arlington Democratic Committee’s school board endorsement candidates, Angelo Cocchiaro and Miranda Turner, ahead of the caucus votes in May.
We want community input - so, what would you ask them? Thank you for your participation! Submit your question now.
Parent Educational Portal
Bipartisan Legislation cleared by the General Assembly this session is designed to provide comprehensive data to parents and teachers. It requires the Virginia Board of Education to create and maintain the Virginia Parent Data Portal, which would contain individualized student assessment data on all state-supported evaluations, by July 1, 2025. The legislation would also require the Board and the Department of Education to provide guidance and technical assistance to school divisions on how to use the data.
Read more about the legislation.
What We’re Reading
Tough Love: Study Shows Kids Benefit from Teachers With High Grading Standards(The 74 Million)
“They might not want to hear it, but it’s true: Students assigned to teachers with tougher grading policies are better off in the long run, research suggests. According to a paper released last fall through Brown University’s Annenberg Institute for School Reform, eighth- and ninth-graders who learned from math teachers with relatively higher performance standards earned better test scores in Algebra I. The same students later saw their improved results carry forward to subsequent years of math instruction, and — contradicting fears that high expectations might cause kids to resist or give up — they were less likely to be absent from classes than similar students assigned to more lax graders.
Seth Gershenson, an economist at American University and one of the paper’s co-authors, said the breadth and longevity of the positive results showed that they were not flowing from a quirk of testing. Rather, high standards ‘change the way students engage with school,’ he argued.” Read more.
As we embrace the ‘science of reading,’ we can’t leave out older students(Chalkbeat)
“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….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.” Read more.
Done Right, Tutoring can Greatly Boost Student Learning (The 74 Million)
“I worry that policymakers will pretend high-dosage tutoring is happening at scale and then, when student outcomes do not measurably improve, declare that it hasn’t worked…This cannot happen with tutoring, both because it works and because it has enormous potential to scale in the years ahead. Our first year of doing this work at Accelerate has given me three reasons for optimism.
First, research continues to show that tutoring is a powerful tool to catch students up and boost them forward. We are supporting research through a number of university partners, and evidence will continue to come out in the months ahead that shows high levels of impact for well-constructed tutoring programs.” Read more.
Online tutoring company Paper loses statewide contract in New Mexico (Chalkbeat)
“New Mexico hired Paper last fall to provide on-demand virtual tutoring to students who attend high-poverty elementary and middle schools across the state. But Chalkbeat has learned that top officials at the Public Education Department, or PED, canceled the state’s contract after just three months, citing issues with how quickly ‘Paper was able to enroll students in tutoring and how often students used those services.’
‘It is clear to the PED that this service is not providing the results in terms of engagement, support, or delivery of service to the State’s students,’ New Mexico’s then-interim secretary of education, Mariana Padilla, wrote to Paper in a Feb. 20 letter terminating the state’s contract…Paper, in particular, became a go-to provider for many of the nation’s largest school districts, including in Los Angeles, Boston, and the Las Vegas area, as well as the states of Mississippi and Tennessee. But reporting by Chalkbeat and other news outlets has raised questions about the utility of Paper’s virtual tutoring — which is primarily conducted over text-based chat and does not include video or live audio — especially for younger children, English language learners, and struggling readers.” Read More.
3/16 School Board Recap
Here are our Top Three Takeaways from the March 16th School Board meeting:
Memorandum of Understanding between APS and Arlington County Police Department regarding how they will collaborate on emergency response, threat assessment, educational programming, and support for school-based activities is under review.
Social-Emotional Survey of APS coming up April 24-28 (opt out required by March 29th).
DEI Update from Dr. Ty Byrd: regarding inclusion of neurodiverse students, six FTEs budgeted for the DEI office, unconscious bias training for APS teachers, and how data from new DEI dashboard will be gathered and used.
Read the full recap.
See our scorecard for this meeting.
Happening Soon:
Thursday, March 23, 7 PM: Public Hearing on the Superintendent’s Proposed FY 24 Budget. Sign up to speak. Syphax. Watch live.
Sunday, March 26, 7-8:30 PM: NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Parent Support Group meeting. Register here.
Tuesday, March 28, 5:30 PM: Committee of the Whole Meeting. Syphax. Watch live.
Tuesday, March 28, 7:30-9 PM: Arlington SEPTA Monthly Meeting/Collaborative Teaming to Help Families with Students with Complex Communication Needs. Register here.
Wednesday, March 29, 7-9 PM: ADHD Parent Series. Register here.
Tuesday, April 11, 8:30-10:30 AM: Open Office Hours with Bethany Zecher Sutton. Sign up to speak.
Did you know you can add the APS calendar to your iphone calendar or google calendar? Check it out!
