You write that in the U.S., we don’t have a system per se, but rather a series of 鈥渞andom acts of intervention.鈥�

Right. There’s a program to teach reading that was the result of two teachers going to a workshop five years ago. There’s a program for low-income kids that came from a mayor 10 years ago. There’s a technology-focused curriculum that some superintendent brought in two years ago. These are random acts of intervention. None of them match up. None of them go away. They just add up, layer after layer, in a conflicting mess.

Countries such as Singapore, Canada, Finland, China and so on outpace us in education. What’s their secret?

What you see in these other countries is very different. Most of them have education ministers; we do not. The education ministry, which basically operates the whole system, is very interested in innovation, and these leaders go all over the world looking for innovations鈥攂ut they don’t just bring each one back helter-skelter. They ask, 鈥淗ow is this going to fit with what we’re already doing?鈥� And they alter it so it will fit. They don’t introduce it in just one or two places. If it really works, it becomes part of the system and gets integrated, but only when it harmonizes with the rest of the system.

Is part of the difference that other countries are more homogenous鈥攖hey share a common culture鈥攚hereas the U.S. has a diverse population and a variety of cultures?

Well, there are a lot of people who think that is true. But it is less true in all countries than you’d think. Canada, for example, which performs way above the United States, has a larger percentage of students who were born in some other country than is the case in the U.S. In parts of Canada, the immigration levels are off the chart.

In the U.S., principals are often chosen not because they’re good teachers, but because they’re good managers.

Australia has a level of diversity, as we think about it, second only to the United States. But Australia performs well above the United States. Outside of Greece, Australia even has the largest population of people from Greece in the world. Who knew?

I had no idea.

Australia is a country of immigrants, just as the U.S. is. And in many ways, so is Canada. People say, 鈥淲ell, Marc, think of China; they’re all Chinese.鈥� And I laugh because Mandarin is not a language that most Chinese know. There’s an enormous diversity of language and ethnicity in China.

Now, look at Singapore, which consistently has the highest level of performance in the world. It’s a country of nearly 6 million, which is the size of a typical state in the United States. When it began as a country around 1960, most of its people were illiterate; they were fighting each other in the streets. Some were from Indonesia, some were from Malaysia, some were from India and some were ethnic Chinese. They were anything but homogenous.

Europe, too, is changing rapidly. In Belgium, the levels of immigration have been very high. Germany has had very high levels of immigration since the 1970s.

So it’s just not the case that these other countries perform better because they’re less diverse than we are.

In the U.S., we have programs and resources directed to various groups鈥攍ow income, special education and so on. Is it the same in other countries?

In other countries, you rarely find the kinds of categorical programs that we’ve got. In the United States, much of the aid that comes from the federal government is intended for specific groups of kids, is to be used in specific ways, and comes with a large panoply of rules and regulations.

What most people don’t realize is that the majority of employees in state departments of education are there to manage the federal programs. You’ve got a Title I office, a Title III office, a Title That office, and a Title the Other Thing office, a special education program and so on. And at each step, they add their own rules and regulations.

What that does is Balkanize the school. You don’t see this in the top-performing countries. I don’t know of any that have developed categorical programs the way the United States has.

What do other countries do instead?

They make it very clear that they expect all the kids to be learning at high levels. They typically provide more teachers in relation to the number of students, so more teachers for schools that enroll high numbers of kids from minority groups and low-income kids, for instance. In some countries, they actually put their best teachers in those schools. But in many countries, those schools get more teachers. In a number of countries, they provide more dollar resources, or dollar-equivalent resources, but they don’t do it with categorical programs.

What is often the case, in places such as China and Shanghai, is that the district identifies low-performing schools and high-performing principals. Then, they’ll provide an incentive to those principals to mentor and actually assume some responsibility for the principals in the low-performing schools.

Read: Why K12 education needs diverse teachers

The incentive is pretty straightforward: If you are an ambitious principal and you want to move up in the system, you can’t rise unless you have a record of providing effective help to principals in trouble鈥攖ypically in schools serving low-income kids. The only people that you get in the central office are people who’ve been promoted because they have that kind of experience, and they’ve been successful at it. It’s a big difference.

Along the same lines, you write that in many countries, the principal or headmaster still teaches.

Right, and it does make a huge difference. In the U.S., schools are larger, and principals are often chosen not because they’re good teachers, but because they’re good managers. Then, these principals are told to go around and help teachers do better, but they don’t know how to do that鈥攁nd the teachers recognize it.
If you were to set up a system like the kind they have in Shanghai, in which you have to demonstrate that you are a good teacher before you can climb the career ladder for school administrators, the teachers would know that the people supervising them were there because they had been very good teachers. It sets up a whole different relationship between the faculty and the principal.

Do you believe it’s possible, with our current education department, to create a coherent system?

I do. We’ve been training people and working with school districts for a long time. And once they hear what we’re doing, districts will seek us out and get affiliated with us. They tend to be run by superintendents who want a better future for themselves and their districts. Over the years, the people who joined us as principals have become superintendents, and the superintendents we’ve been training wind up in key positions in state departments of education, and so on.
This is the long view, but I believe we can 鈥済row the system up,鈥� and at the same time, we can work with states to see if we can 鈥済row the current system down.鈥� When that happens, I think you’re going to be really surprised at how much progress we can make.

Tim Goral is senior editor.

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Kaltman was a speaker at the 2019聽

Why did you create 鈥淪ydney’s World鈥�?

When my daughter was in third grade, she had a speech articulation disorder, and we had to practice oral reading. I’d always used good digital learning games for her for phonics and for all sorts of things. But once she was past first grade, there was really nothing around in terms of good digital games for reading.

I found a software engine called RPG Maker, which allowed people without much programming experience to design their own role-playing games. I wanted something that would be interesting for my daughter to use to practice her reading, so I made her the main character.

As I started working on it, I realized that this would be a good learning tool for other kids.

That’s when I started putting a lot of effort into developing a commercial-grade quality game. Coming from a gamer’s perspective, if 鈥淪ydney’s World鈥� didn’t make it in the gaming community as a true game, I wasn’t interested in bringing it into the education world, because we already have a lot of boring educational games that aren’t very good.

That’s how you differentiate a true game from an educational game?

Correct. And that’s what the research points to as well. Some 30 years of research shows that textbooks and worksheets are the least effective ways to teach. When you take that same methodology, but you just throw some graphics on it, it’s still the same thing. It’s not engaging, and it’s engagement that leads to meaning.

In education, it’s called 鈥渃hocolate-covered broccoli鈥濃�攁 digital worksheet trying to pass as a real game when it isn’t. Kids catch on early because it’s boring. All the areas of the brain that are active during a true game are shut down, and basically they’re just doing a worksheet.

How does the game help with reading?

We have an education framework that puts pedagogy first. We’re moving from a teacher-centered to a learner-centered model, because the more that’s going on, the more active the brain is.

In grades 3, 4 and 5, when you read together as a class, sometimes 20 percent to 30 percent of the students are unable to read at grade level, and they feel insecure doing it. So you lose students’ immersion in the story when the person reading is struggling over the words. The teacher often has to read aloud to get a grade-level book done.

The students become immersed because they’re not just reading a story about somebody else; they experience the story as participants.

But with a digital game model, you can have different characters at different Lexile levels. Each student can read fluently and comfortably at their own Lexile level. We break students into groups of four, each comprising a top reader, a lower-level reader and a couple of mid-range readers. Then, they’re assigned characters to read by Lexile level.

Now, everyone is able to read fluently, and the students are actively involved in the reading.

The students assume character roles?

Yes. 鈥淪ydney’s World鈥� is a role-playing game, so all the text is in graphic model format. Whenever you see text on the screen, you see the character who’s saying the text. The students will automatically know whose turn it is to read based on the character they see.

The students also control the characters. They move their characters around, and they have quests and objectives to achieve. They make decisions together about where to go and what to do.

There are 鈥渄ialog branches鈥� in which students get to choose what the characters will say, and each choice affects the next move. There are puzzles to solve. They have battles to do. The students become immersed because they’re not just reading a story about somebody else; they experience the story as participants.

We find that the students use their own pronouns when they talk about the characters. They don’t say: 鈥淗e did this鈥� or 鈥淪he did this.鈥� They say: 鈥淚 did this鈥� or 鈥淲e did this.鈥�

Most kids are familiar with video games. Does this feel more comfortable than a book or worksheet?

They’re digital natives from their earliest years, and this is something that’s very natural for them. A worksheet is not natural for anybody. All you see is a piece of paper with text on it. If you’re reading fluently and you’re comprehending on grade level, then the worksheet makes sense to you. But if you’re having difficulty reading or you have some sort of language delay, then the worksheet is totally alien to you, and you can’t get the information from it that the top third or half of the class is able to get.

When you have a good digital game, however, it is something that you’re experiencing. There’s more meaning to it; there’s more emotional connection to it. There are so many sensors and areas of the brain that are activated with a good digital game, but are not activated with, say, a worksheet. In gaming, students have experiences, so they remember. You can use that for instruction.

搁别补诲:听How to gamify K12 professional development

Was your administration supportive when you introduced the game?

I have a really good principal who’s innovative, and he gets it. He was right on board. And teachers are starting to get more open-minded about the prospect of using game-based elements for learning.

But at the time, with central administration, it fell on deaf ears. I think once you mention a game, in any format, they kind of tune you out. That was one of the biggest hurdles to overcome. Many educators don’t view games as learning. To them, games don’t make sense.

I get that. They have to deal with their boards, and they probably feel they don’t have a lot to stand on there. If it doesn’t work out, they’re going to be held responsible.

They need to show results. How do you determine that kids are learning?

We’ve been giving students reading response questions to 鈥淪ydney’s World鈥� units. But one thing we plan to do is have the class put together a Google site. They have to prove that they really understand how a story works, including all the story components such as seeing conflict鈥攁ll the things they should be learning from traditional novels. I think we’re going to find better cohesion and comprehension than whatever we would have gotten from a traditional novel.

Tim Goral is senior editor.

Interested in edtech? Keep up with the .

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Last September, school districts across also banned cell phones in the classroom in an effort to reduce distractions. confiscated more than 200 phones during the past school year, and classroom performance improved, Principal Robin Kvalo says.

in Santa Fe, New Mexico, has had a since 2016. Teachers, parents and students say that since the ban went into effect, students are more focused in class and even talk to one another at lunchtime.

A bill that would limit smartphone use in classrooms was introduced last month by Utah’s House Education Committee.

But it’s not just the U.S. Last fall, the French Parliament that banned students up to age 15 from taking the devices to school鈥攐r, at the very least, requiring that they be turned off during class.

British education leaders were considering a similar move as of last month. They have pointed to a London School of Economics that found banning phones in schools resulted in a 6 percent rise in test scores.

Relaxed rules

The first of what we know of today as smartphones began appearing in 2007 with the Apple iPhone, followed by Android devices in 2008. By the end of the decade, smartphones quickly became ubiquitous. These days, nearly 70 percent of high school students and 25 percent of middle schoolers have their own phones and use them daily.

The same applies to college students. found that 95 percent of students bring their phones to class every day, 92 percent use their phones to text message during class time, and 10 percent admit that they have texted during an exam on at least one occasion.

When first introduced, many teachers saw iPhones and Android devices as distracting threats, and schools chose to ban them entirely or limit their usage to hallways and outside the building. But as education apps were developed, educators began to see that they could be used as teaching aids鈥攊ncluding having students program their own apps.

Districts began to think that judicious use of phones for classroom research could engage students who have grown up with technology in the palms of their hands.

After all, when the smartphone in your pocket is many millions of timesthan all the computers used to send man to the moon, it makes sense to use it to full advantage.

Read:聽Rethinking edtech amid parent concerns over K12 screen time

At the same time, the BYOD movement began, allowing students to actively use mobile phones as learning devices in school. Soon, there was no shortage of that and on teachers can smartphones in the classroom.

And, with the ever-present threat of emergency events at schools, many parents want to contact their children throughout the day, so early smartphone bans were relaxed to allow the devices in the classroom.

Last month, for example, in Florida began to from a ban on cellphones in schools. School leaders will propose letting students have phones in their bags, but not visible during class.

A recent from the National Center for Education Statistics shows that the percentage of public schools that banned cell phones and other mobile devices dropped from nearly 91 percent in 2010 to nearly 66 percent in 2016.

Full circle?

But as is often the case with technology introductions, smartphones in the classroom may be a case of too much of a good thing. Although these devices have immense potential to improve learning, researchers say their persistent presence may come at a cognitive cost. Even when the devices are not in use, they say, these devices can be such a distraction that students can’t focus. A recent by the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research shows that 聙聹the mere presence of one’s own smartphone may occupy limited-capacity cognitive resources, thereby leaving fewer resources available for other tasks and undercutting cognitive performance.聙聺

Supporting such observations, a research study published last summer seems to prove that smartphones and mobile devices contribute to cognitive distraction. , conducted by Rutgers University Psychology professors Arnold Glass and Mengxue Kang, split a group of 118 college students into two groups. Each group was taught the same material by the same instructor, in the same classroom at the same time of day. One group was allowed to have smartphones or other mobile devices open during class, while the other wasn’t.

The researchers report that the group that had the devices scored, on average, a half-letter grade lower on exams, which might be the difference between passing and failing in some cases. Students who didn’t use a device but were in the same classroom with those who did also scored lower, apparently due to distraction from surrounding devices.

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The use of vending machines in schools to dispense quick meals that qualify for US91看片 reimbursement is one of the fastest-growing trends in the sector, says Jim Dillingham, CEO of , a company that provides vending services to school districts.

These cash-free machines are connected to the school’s point-of-sale accounting system. A student can access the food with their personal ID, and the cost鈥攆ull, reduced or free鈥攊s debited from their school lunch account.

Common items include chef salads, sandwiches, healthful snacks, milk and bottled water, and many schools enlist vocational and special education students to help stock and maintain the machines, Dillingham says.

Here are five things to consider for maximizing the return on investment for your vending machines.

1. Machine location can boost usage. Reimbursable meal vending machines don’t necessarily need to be in or near the cafeteria. Placing them near the school entrance can increase participation in breakfast programs, and installing them near the gym can make them accessible to student-athletes returning from after-school practices or games.

2. Newer and smarter is better. If your snack vending machines are showing their age, consider working with your vending company to replace them with newer models that may be more enticing to tech-savvy students. Cashless payment options, including Apple Pay and Android Pay, are a must. Also, look for machines with remote monitoring technology, so the vending partner or district food services coordinator can keep the machines fully stocked. For security purposes, consider machines that can record who opens them and when.

3. The DIY question. Give careful consideration to the costs and benefits associated with operating your own snack vending machines or working with a third party. Self-operated machines give districts greater control over food selection and pricing, and usually provide more revenue. But partnering with a vending company can be simpler and usually includes a revenue-sharing arrangement.

4. Choose the right vending partner. If you do decide to work with a vending partner, large national vending companies may offer districts sign-up bonuses and generous revenue-sharing arrangements, but snack selection may be limited. Smaller local vending companies generally offer more flexible contracts, personalized customer service and more regionally focused food choices, says Andre Bramwell, owner of , a Houston-based vending company.

5. Kids will buy nutritious snacks, but it’s all in the presentation. A whole-grain muffin placed in a vending machine between the M&M’s and the potato chips probably won’t be a big mover. But a kid-friendly machine stocked with an assortment of healthful choices, such as those provided to schools by , can help your students make better snacking decisions.

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AESA is seeking presentation proposals for its annual conference. ASBO has a new board of directors. ASCD is honoring its affiliate award winners. AASA is pushing for expanded student health care. And NSBA announced its backing for reauthorization and full funding of IDEA.

The Association of Educational Service Agencies聽(AESA) is seeking presentation proposals for its Summer Leadership Conference, to be held July 15-19 in Long Beach, California. The theme of the conference is on the role of ESAs in leading high-quality stakeholder engagement efforts that lead to sustainable regional or state-level educational improvement. Presentation proposals are due by March 1.

The Association of School Business Officials International聽(ASBO) has announced its 2019 International board of directors. The board members guide the association in fulfilling its mission and advocate for their colleagues and the school business management profession. The new president is Thomas Wohlleber, chief financial officer, Casa Grande Elementary School District 4, Casa Grande, Arizona. The new vice president is Claire Hertz, superintendent of business and operations, Portland Public Schools, Portland, Oregon. See the full list of officers and board members .

础厂颁顿听has announced its 2019 Affiliate Honors Award winners. The honorees will be recognized at the Leadership Appreciation Luncheon during ASCD Empower19 in Chicago on March 16. The winners of the ASCD 2019 Affiliate Honors Awards are Virginia ASCD, Illinois ASCD, Texas ASCD, and Ontario ASCD and Tennessee ASCD. .

础础厂础听has announced a push for policy action to address the growing need of providing health care services to students in small and rural districts. The organization recently released a report that describes how immediate congressional action could ensure school districts of all sizes deliver health care services more efficiently and to a greater number of students.

The National School Boards Association聽(NSBA) has launched an initiative to advocate for the reauthorization and full funding of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). NSBA will highlight the critical need for the federal government to fulfill a long overdue promise to provide equal access to public education for all students and work with Congress to update this vital law.

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When it comes to engagement, there are few who know more than Gallup. Valerie Calderon, senior consultant at the organization known for its public opinion polls and research analysis, says the same principles of engagement that have been applied in the corporate world for years can be applied in school districts as well. Calderon is co-author of a recent report titled 鈥淪uperintendents Say Engagement, Hope Best Measure of Success鈥� (91看片mag.me/03vc). The 2018 report addresses a variety of issues, including the challenges facing K12 education, and how to evaluate the effectiveness of public schools, student preparedness and school safety measures. 鈥淚 find that even in my world outside of Gallup, but certainly through our data, that people are thinking hard about what we need to do for students to help set them on their own best pathway to a great life,鈥� Calderon says.

Your research shows superintendents give less weight to standardized test scores than they do to other measures.

We really think of these as noncognitive measures. People call them lots of things鈥攕oft skills, nonacademic measures. We would say that these belong in the framework of measures around school effectiveness.

I serve on the board of education in my city. I wouldn’t say that standardized tests are not relevant, nor would any of my colleagues. We see in our survey that 6 in 10 superintendents say that they’re important.

But we haven’t been able to find effective ways to talk about noncognitive skills from a measurement standpoint, and I think that’s reflected in the data. We want to better understand how to 鈥渄o school鈥� so that students can map a great pathway to their future. That isn’t indicated only by their standardized test scores.

How often do you conduct this superintendent survey?

We’ve run the superintendent survey at least four or five times since 2013. In fact, this latest survey ran the same set of items in 2016, so it was interesting to see that we had some important movement. We did have a higher proportion of superintendents saying that hope and engagement, for example, are a little bit more important in helping students prepare for their future beyond academic preparation.

Explain what you mean when you talk about engagement.

We think of engagement as involvement and enthusiasm. It isn’t just that you’re involved in the learning process. It isn’t just that you’re turning in assignments. It isn’t just that you’re listening. It’s that you are enthusiastic. And our thinking and our science around engagement in schools is really part of Gallup’s broader science. We study what engaged workers look like.

It really does involve that feeling component. You’re enthusiastic and excited and psychologically invested in your work. All of us have been in schools where you look around and the kids are excited, and you can almost see those proverbial lightbulbs above their heads just clicking on when they’re learning.

Did any of these survey results surprise you?

The surprise for me was just how broad the gap was between the percentage of graduates from schools where the superintendents favor hope and engagement, versus from those where they said standardized tests are very important. The difference is what surprised me. Not that it was there, but just how much it jumped out. Again, I’m mindful that we still have 6 in 10 superintendents saying these tests are important. But it shows that we need to find other ways to help us know how students are doing, and can map the best pathway to their future. It really just highlights that we have to continue to get really good at that in our schools.

We haven’t been able to find effective ways to talk about noncognitive skills from a measurement standpoint.

You write that student enthusiasm falls as high school graduation nears. At about what point does that drop-off begin?

This is a trend that we’ve seen for a good long while in our polling of students. I have found pretty consistently that there is a big change in engagement around those middle school years, between sixth grade and seventh. It’s not the lowest point of engagement as we measure it, but the biggest difference in engagement occurs during those years.

We’re certainly not the only ones studying that, of course. I know you’ve seen lots of other good work around engagement. The work shows, pretty much, that the difference in engagement happens around those middle school years. Those middle school years present some opportunities to think about the ways we do school.

What are some ways to measure and build engagement among students, staff and parents?

We have systematic ways that we define and measure engagement. It starts with getting systematic feedback, in which you’re asking people how they feel about their schools, about their work, about their future.

It’s really just a first step. I should say that it’s important that you don’t conduct a survey without having some kind of plan. That’s really important. In fact, I would recommend not conducting surveys. I know that sounds terrible coming from a survey designer.

I love quantitative data, but I say it’s only a compass that kind of points you in a good direction. There’s much more to be done.

You have to follow that up with good additional listening. Boosting the engagement of your core constituencies in schools really requires active listening, not just measurement.

Measure, ask, listen and listen some more. Then, invite people to the table to talk about how we鈥攁nd 鈥渨e鈥� is very intentional鈥攃an make this the very best place to live, learn, serve and work. Involve your parents, your students, your educators, your staff members鈥攁nyone who listens.

The engagement of the transportation workers matters as well. They’re critical district ambassadors. They’re the first folks kids see when they start a school day.
Help them understand that they play a critical role. They keep students physically safe, but let’s help them learn good ways to help students feel emotionally and psychologically safe as well.

When you inspire people to that great mission, so they can contribute to the engagement of students, it’s something that is passed on. These are really powerful conversations that can result in concrete actions and steps.

Sometimes the actions don’t cost a lot; sometimes it’s just awareness, a little bit of education and sharing good ideas.

You have a pretty good example of that kind of engagement in one of your articles.

Right. My daughter is a pretty competitive kid, and she had a career-ending injury in gymnastics. But I was so grateful for this educator who recognized that her competitiveness needed an outlet. I would never have thought about what else she might do because being a gymnast was all she knew. This educator moved her into pole vaulting.

I use that as an example because it aligns with what we see in our research. When kids have chances to figure out what they do best, they shine.

My daughter was a gymnast and pole vaulter, but what she really loves is competition. She loves the pressure. She loves to test herself and to be put in situations where she can do that.

Now, she’s studying to be in the health care profession, which can be pretty intense. But she’s had a lot of practice being in intense situations, and she’ll carry that through her life.

How is that reflected in your research?

We find in our data that kids who say they’re involved in at least one activity can test-drive their future.

Helping kids find and practice their strengths in ways that can benefit them in the future is pretty powerful. We have to give students chances to practice鈥攖hrough a sport, a skill or an internship. That’s what we can do for students.

They can move into the future with just a little bit more confidence, and a little bit more certainty that, 鈥淵es, I may fail some days, but I’m going to have a different pathway that I can try, and move toward success.鈥�

We call that hope building.

Tim Goral is senior editor.

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School districts around the country are experimenting with starting classes later to allow students to get extra sleep.

While some dismiss the idea as pampering, Nathaniel F. Watson says there are solid scientific reasons to consider it.聽As we age, our internal circadian rhythms and biological sleep drives change, resulting in later sleep and wake times. Lack of sleep hampers a student’s preparedness to learn, negatively impacts physical and mental health, and impairs driving.

Watson, a University of Washington professor of neurology and co-director of the UW Medicine Sleep Center, says that changing the start time of the school day can help remedy many of these problems.聽鈥淓veryone who deals with this issue wants the same thing鈥攆or children to be as healthy and happy and as successful as possible in school and life,鈥� Watson says. 鈥淭his is one way to move in that direction.鈥�

Before reading your report (damag.me/sleep), I was unaware that so many biological and physical conditions that affect teens are tied to a lack of sleep.

Yes. As children age, particularly as they become adolescents, their circadian rhythms get delayed a little bit, and they require later bedtimes and later wake times. We know that these children have difficulty falling asleep before 11 p.m., and they need eight to 10 hours of sleep per night to support optimal health. When you have these early start times, there’s just not enough time for them to get the healthy sleep they need. It’s really tragic because we know that sleep deprivation is associated with obesity, behavioral issues, increased risk for motor vehicle accidents, and reduced academic performance.

Your younger years are when you develop many long-term habits regarding your health. When the system creates this crunch, in which we’re not allowing these adolescents adequate time to sleep, we are, in a sense, setting them up for a lifetime of sleep deprivation, or at the very least, teaching them at an early age that sleep isn’t as important as it actually is to their health and well-being.

Many people assume that our use of smartphones and tablets keeps us from sleeping.

Our physiology is linked to light-dark cycles and much of it has to do with the secretion of melatonin from our pineal gland, which occurs when it gets dark.

It’s a physiological phenomenon, not a social media/smartphone phenomenon as many think鈥攁lthough certainly screens and media and things like that are not necessarily conducive to sleep. The blue wavelengths from these devices can suppress melatonin secretion.

As they go through adolescence, kids naturally get this delay in their circadian rhythms. We have to be sensitive to that at such a crucial time in their growth and development. To respect their physiology and optimize it is really what we’re getting at here.

Your report also lists metabolic dysfunction, cardiovascular morbidity, increased depressive symptoms and suicidal ideations as side effects of sleep deprivation.

Right, and you can take that a step further. In progressive school districts that have changed bell times to 8:30 a.m. or later for middle and high schools, they have higher graduation rates, reduced truancy and improved academic performance. These are tangible benefits that have been observed in school districts that have made these changes.

If I could tell any school board there was one thing they could do鈥攐ne simple change they could make that would increase graduation rates, reduce truancy, increase mental health, reduce motor vehicle accidents, and, frankly, increase the mood and feeling of well-being in the school鈥擨 think they would do it.

Does the current evidence support the idea that later start times result in higher grades?

I think the evidence is strongest for reduced truancy rates and increased graduation rates. The grade-related comment is less strongly supported by the evidence. But, presumably, if graduation rates are increasing, grades are increasing and academic performance is improving. As more school districts make these changes, more evidence will be available.

The objections to changing start times often revolve around transportation
issues and after-school activities.

Any problems with bus schedules or practice schedules or things like that are just issues to be solved. In particular for practice schedules, a well-rested child is going to be far more efficient and attentive and successful in their practice, and, ostensibly, you could have shorter, more effective practices.

Later start times are being discussed in a number of districts, but so far not broadly. Do you think it will catch on nationally?

I’d like to think that we could have legislation that would address this issue, either on a statewide basis or nationally. The California Legislature recently passed a bill to have school start times delayed in accordance with teenage physiology, but unfortunately Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed the measure.

We’re at a point where these changes are made one school district, one school board at a time.

And the only way you get to change is to form an activated community that shows up to school board meetings and that elects school board members who take this issue seriously. That’s what happened here in the Seattle area a few years ago. It was concerned parents, teachers and the medical community鈥攊n particular, the sleep medicine community鈥攚ho got together, gathered all the necessary information, went to school board meetings, pressed the issue, educated school board members, and brought forth this change.

If parents, teachers and the medical community are driving the issue, is the resistance coming from school boards?

I think school boards in general try to avoid controversy, and it takes courage to make these changes. We live in an age in which the zeitgeist, unfortunately, is that sleep is not important. So a lot of school board members, through no fault of their own, are swimming in an ocean of 鈥渟leep de-prioritization鈥� and don’t know any better.

You have to educate them about the importance of sleep first, and I think from a societal basis, we’re starting to move the needle on that a bit by getting the word out. We spend a third of our lives sleeping, so it must be important for human physiology.

The transportation problem seems to be a common sticking point.

When it comes to bus schedules, consider this: Younger children have a different physiology. They get up earlier. They can start school earlier. They need to go to bed earlier. So a lot of times, all you have to do is flip it. Oftentimes, school districts will bus the younger elementary school children last and the high school and middle school kids first, and that’s completely antithetical to human physiology. If you just flipped that around, you could go a long way toward solving that problem.

I realize that for some parents, their work schedules and their younger children’s childcare schedules need to be addressed and solved. Those are the roadblocks and they’re real, but they can be solved. That’s what has to be conveyed to school boards.

Another potential criticism of making this change is that we can do this, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that kids are going to sleep more. If we make the change, then kids will just stay up even later at night. But, in fact, there’s a study here in Seattle that showed that middle and high school students were actually getting an additional 30 minutes of sleep when the bell times were moved back.

What can readers do to help sell this idea to their respective school boards?

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine has a position statement (91看片mag .me/0219-aasm), which was published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. The American Academy of Pediatrics (www.aap.org) has a number of papers on this issue. Bring these resources to the board meetings. There are national organizations, such as StartSchoolLater.net, that are looking into this as well.

This really is a movement that’s going across the country, and it’s a flat-out opportunity. The reason that school leaders do what they do is to optimize the opportunity for success for their students, and this is an opportunity for leaders to really move the needle on that.

Tim Goral is senior editor.

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Engaging environment
School leaders and staff connect personally with individual students, making contact with everyone they see, knowing each by name, fist bumping, and always saying hello.

Personal contact with parents and families
Principals, social workers and staff build relationships with families, making school welcoming. Providing an interpreter for non-English speaking parents improves communication. Schools also can rely on local community liaisons, who develop relationships with families and students.

Attendance programs and systems
Incentive programs, tardiness policies, and a broader philosophy on counseling students are part of a committed, comprehensive approach that relies on systems.

Record-keeping and logistics
Whether it involves a card-scanning machine that students swipe as they enter, a smartphone app that an administrator checks, or hall sweeps by every adult in the building, schools that maintain high attendance analyze their data throughout the day.

Valerie Marsh is an assistant professor at the University of Rochester’s Warner School of Education in New York. Shaun Nelms is superintendent for educational partnership organizations at East Upper & East Lower schools in Rochester, and an associate professor at the Warner School.

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Taking the first steps

Before beginning an energy conservation program, administrators should consider how to generate support. We surveyed faculty and staff to learn why they bought into their district’s energy program. The top response was one of employee self-efficacy: Participants were willing to support an energy conservation program because they knew their efforts were saving money.

This should underscore the importance of educating faculty and staff on why a certain program or policy is being implemented. Often, policies are enforced without the need being understood. If employees are aware of the desired outcome, then the policy is more likely to be accepted and sustained.

Ongoing promotion of an initiative also breeds success. Because lack of communication can cause a policy to fall by the wayside after the program is launched, administrators must update stakeholders regularly and supply data on cost savings. Updates can be provided via emails, social media posts, flyers and faculty meetings.

Keeping everyone in the loop in our district reinforced employees’ willingness to participate because they knew their efforts were helping the district save money.

The third key to success is monitoring for compliance. If employees are aware that they are being held accountable to district-requested actions, they are more likely to support and continue an energy conservation program. It is important that this is not seen as punitive, but as a follow-through, assuring employees that the program is ongoing.

All it takes is a simple visit during unoccupied times by an administrator or a designated employee, such as a facility manager or custodian. They can assess how well teachers and support staff are doing with their efforts in conserving energy within their classrooms or workspaces. These visits support accountability by letting employees know that the district is serious about its energy program by monitoring for compliance.

Keeping it going

The conservation program at our district has been ongoing for nine years, and we continue to save on our utility expenses. We regularly stress each employee’s responsibility to help the district save money. We continue to communicate about the program, the financial and energy savings generated from employee efforts, and additional opportunities to conserve. Our program is continually monitored to assess buy-in and employee actions, and to ensure that the district initiative holds all employees accountable.

Empowering employees by addressing self-efficacy, continued communication and monitoring for compliance can help administrators implement an energy conservation program. These three factors are not new, but they are proven ways to help kick-start and sustain an energy conservation program.聽

Jon Myers is the executive director of instruction and school improvement for Noble Public Schools in Oklahoma.

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What if education could be better鈥攆or students and for educators? Katie Martin says it can be, when educators replace traditional teaching models with a collaborative, creative environment that empowers learners to explore and take risks in the pursuit of growth. Martin leads Partnerships-West at AltSchool, a growing community of districts and schools that is building a comprehensive platform for learning that puts students at the center. In her book

You were conventionally trained like most teachers. What opened your eyes to learner-centered innovation?

I definitely went to school in a traditional way. But my mom was a teacher and was always very innovative in her classroom, so I saw what she was doing, which was different from what I was experiencing as a kid in my own school. Later, my teacher credential program was in an innovative, interdisciplinary middle school program, so early on as an educator, I had a different learning experience from most teachers. When I enrolled in the program I was actively looking for something that was a little different than the traditional model: What would I have liked school to be? I didn’t want someone telling me all the answers. I wanted to think on my own. I tried as a teacher to create as many of those experiences as possible. How could I get more out of the kids than me being the one who tells them all the answers?

They don’t include this in teaching colleges, do they?

No, not really. What I say often in the book is that teachers create what they experience. Most of our educators have gone through their own education very traditionally, and that’s what they know to create. So their own learning experiences aren’t modeling the type of learning we want to see in the classroom. It’s very difficult to shift their own practice.

I did a teacher workshop recently and gave the group an exercise. I said, 鈥淎s a group, figure out a question you have about the impact of technology in our world.鈥� The teachers thought about questions they had, and together they researched, they looked up articles online, they found some books, they used their own prior knowledge, and they made a presentation about what they learned in a half-hour.

Later they said, 鈥淥h my gosh, you didn’t just tell us everything we needed to know, and there wasn’t just one way to do this. We could do this more in our classrooms.鈥� They had to experience it first to understand what was possible for their kids.

Is this approach more work for the teacher?

In some ways, the upfront planning can be more intensive, and you have to take time to understand and know your kids. In a learner-centered classroom, the teacher is being thoughtful about the questions and the desired outcome, but they haven’t necessarily spent all their time pulling together all the resources that every kid needs to go through. They’re turning that over to the students.

What we need to do is bring the learners into the process so they’re the ones doing the work. They’re the ones thinking through and helping each other solve problems and learn things together.

Something happens around fifth or sixth grade鈥攌ids lose their enthusiasm for learning. You write about your own daughter, asking, 鈥淲hat will we miss out on if the 鈥榳hat if’ questions subside, and she begins to settle for what is?鈥�

I see how interesting and thoughtful she is, and the way she thinks. If that gets squashed, I do wonder what we’ll miss out on. What’s going to happen when she’s out of school? We have a lot of really complex problems in our world, and if we’re not developing skills and confidence in our learners in school, we can’t expect that they’re going to be ready to solve problems when they’re out of school.

With districts and schools pressured to show results, how does this type of learning help them meet state standards?

This is the crux of the challenge, right? Yes, the standards are what matters, and if we say they don’t, that’s irresponsible. We’re held accountable to standards. Besides, I think we have an assumption that people only care about the test and the accountability.

I was in Chicago at a school district recently, and I met with groups of teachers and parents. The teachers told me, 鈥淥ur parents care about the scores. They only care about their kids’ reading levels, and that prevents us from doing things that are meaningful and engaging.鈥�

Then, meeting with the parents, I said, 鈥淭he teachers think that you only care about test scores and you only care about the grades your kids get.鈥�

And they said, 鈥淣o, we want our kids to be problem-solvers. We want our kids to be creative. We want them to be happy and self-sufficient. We don’t want them living in our basement.鈥�

But then I asked, 鈥淥K, what does that look like? What do you ask the teachers and kids about?鈥� You can probably guess: 鈥淗ow did you do on your test? What grade did you get? Did you behave today?鈥�

For someone who is inspired by the examples in your book, how do they begin to transform learning?

For me, it always comes back to the learners. You have to ask, 鈥淲hat do we want them to know and do?鈥� That’s the starting point. We want kids who are self-sufficient, who have integrity, who can solve problems, who can communicate well. How do we work backward from there? What things do we need to keep doing that are actually working? What things do we need to stop doing? Reflective questions can help us better understand and start making tweaks, piece by piece. And getting buy-in to try some things out is a really helpful place to start.

But how do you get that buy-in? If you have five teachers in grade 4, and three of them take a learning-centered approach and the other two teach conventionally, doesn’t that send a mixed message? Shouldn’t they all be on the same page?

Should they? Yes. Will they ever be? I don’t know, but I think we can start opening up doors. I love getting teachers in each other’s classrooms鈥攏ot to be 鈥渄eficit minded,鈥� but to see what is actually working well.

So you get those five teachers and say, 鈥淟et’s walk around classrooms and do a scavenger hunt for all the things that are promoting effective collaboration.鈥� Promote what is working. That opens up people’s minds much more than walking around and pointing out what they’re doing wrong.

Teachers are so isolated鈥攖hey’re in their classroom with their kids and don’t often see what’s going on in each other’s classrooms. Until they actually get in and see the learning and see what’s happening, it’s hard to know how to translate that to their own practice.

What do you want readers to take away from your book?

If we are going to create schools and learning environments that are focused on learning and learners, we have to model that ourselves. You can’t stand up in a staff meeting and tell people to do things differently for kids if you’re not willing to look at your own practice and think about how you can model the learning experiences for the educators.

91看片istrators shouldn’t have to and can’t do this alone. They should not be expected to have all the answers. It takes a community; it takes more than what we’ve traditionally done. We need to work together to redefine what’s possible in our schools. 91看片

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