The 180

Dr. Jeff Duncan-Andrade: The Purpose of Education Should Be Youth Wellness

Dr. Jeff Duncan-Andrade has a way of asking questions about the American public school system that are as precise as they are provocative. One of his questions: “Why do we take children by law from their families at age six for 13 consecutive years for eight hours a day?” The response, he says, should be Youth wellness.

Every school, he says, “should make a promise to every family that when you drop your child off to us in the morning and turn your back and walk away, our promise to you is that when you come back and pick them up your child will be more well than when you dropped them off.”

He knows that’s impossible. But the point for Dr. Duncan-Andrade is that by simply making that promise, our schools have the chance, every day, to own it, apologize, and make it right. And while the goal of wellness might be simple, his remedy to reach it is not: A complete rethink and rebuild of public education, one built through something he calls “community responsiveness.”

Dr. Duncan-Andrade – Professor of Latina/o Studies and Race and Resistance Studies at San Francisco State University – also seeks to bring his vision to life through the East Oakland school that he co-founded, the Roses in Concrete Community School, in lectures he delivers around the world, and through his books and numerous journal articles on effective practices in schools.

For more information, go to www.turnaroundusa.org/podcast.

Zaretta Hammond: How Teachers Can Become Personal Trainers of Cognitive Development

Today we continue our conversation with Zaretta Hammond.

In part one, Zaretta explained what it means to be a culturally responsive teacher – and why it’s necessary not only to stimulate intellectual curiosity, but also move beyond cognitive redlining and transition students to cognitive independence.

In part two, Zaretta extends the analysis, outlining practical steps for teachers to become, ideally, personal trainers of cognitive development. And we discuss whether educators should be worried about so-called “learning loss” during the  Covid-19 pandemic or focus instead on what students may have learned away from school?

Some background: Hammond is the author of “Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain” and founder of the “Ready 4 Rigor” blog. She is a former English teacher and, for nearly two decades, has worked at the crux of instructional design, professional development, and achieving equity. She is particularly interested in the work teachers must do to help students become the drivers of their own learning.

For more information, go to www.turnaroundusa.org/podcast.

Zaretta Hammond: What is Culturally Responsive Teaching?

This may seem obvious: Students learn best in environments where they feel a sense of safety and belonging – environments that the science of learning and development has shown open up the brain to learning. 

But what if children find themselves in spaces, that teacher educator and author Zaretta Hammond calls “inequitable by design?” What is the responsibility for teachers and schools if the obstacle to learning is our educational system itself?  And further, what does it mean to be a culturally responsive teacher – and why is that necessary, not only to stimulate intellectual curiosity, but to move beyond “cognitive redlining” and transition students to “cognitive independence”?

Zarretta Hammond is the author of “Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain” and founder of the “Ready 4 Rigor” blog. She is a former English teacher and, for nearly two decades, has worked at the crux of instructional design, professional development, and achieving equity. Hammond’s research explores and analyzes the brain functions that inform how we learn and think. And it delves deeply into how students of color would benefit from culturally responsive teaching, and what it means – and doesn’t mean – for how educators can help students get ready to tackle the rigorous content necessary to succeed.

As you’ll hear, it’s such thought-provoking conversation that it called for two episodes of this podcast.

For more information, go to www.turnaroundusa.org/podcast.

Dan Cogan-Drew of Newsela: Helping Students Become Agents of Their Own Learning

The science of learning and development reveals how academic growth is fueled not just by the acquisition of knowledge, but from dynamic relationships between students, teachers, peers and what they experience.

So what experiences can education technology offer to support those relationships and spur engagement and motivation to learn? That’s what Newsela seeks to create - by tapping into every child's curiosity in accessible and relevant ways. Newsela offers educators and students access to current news stories no matter their reading level - on everything from the mission to Mars, to the Derek Chauvin trial, to the new pets in the White House.

And it seems to be working. A randomized controlled trial study found that students using Newsela twice a week doubled their reading scores compared to students taught reading without the platform. Today, Newsela is in 90% of American schools, serving 37 million students and 2.5 million teachers. EdTech funders have certainly taken notice. Newsela recently announced a $100M Series D investment.

So how does it work? For the answer we turned to Dan Cogan-Drew, Newsela’s Co-founder and Chief Academic Officer. Dan has worked in education for 25 years, as a public, independent and charter school teacher, and with a focus on integrating digital learning technologies to engage students and accelerate learning.

For more information, go to www.turnaroundusa.org/podcast.

Christina Theokas, Ph.D.: The Well-Being Index

How do teachers know how their students are doing? Grades? Grades measure how much students have learned. Attendance? Attendance measures whether they show up.

But as the Science of Learning and Development shows, how well children learn depends on how well and how safe they feel. So it’s important for educators to have a true picture of the whole child.

And, of course, the urgency and challenge to understanding how children are doing has only increased during the pandemic.

That’s why Turnaround for Children has developed its Well-Being Index. This series of questions helps children describe how they are feeling . By taking these measurements on a regular basis over a period of months, teachers can learn not only what their students might be facing on the inside, but also how to help.

How does the Well-Being Index work?

Dr. Christina Theokas is Turnaround for Children’s Chief Applied Science Officer. She oversees the teams that translate the science of learning and development into resources and tools for educators – including the Well-Being Index and the teams that partner with educators to design schools that are organized to support whole child development and learning.

For more information, go to www.turnaroundusa.org/podcast.

P.S. 340: Getting to Know How Students are Feeling and Functioning

In our previous podcast, we heard from Turnaround for Children about how their Well-Being Index was designed and is meant to work. Today, we get hear the details – from the field – about how it works in action.

P.S. 340 is a K-5 school in the Bronx, NY. Frankly, it’s one of those incredible schools that goes well beyond reading, writing and arithmetic to help students learn and grow.

P.S. 340’s mission, stated clearly on its website, is to educate the whole child. To do that, the school offers an extraordinary range of programs not only to their students, but also to their families.

This year, P.S. 340 is working with Turnaround for Children on a new way to learn about and help their students. They’re using the Well-Being Index.

This series of questions helps children describe how they are feeling. By regularly taking these measurements over months, teachers can learn not only what their students might be facing on the inside, but also what they might do to help.

So how is it going? To find out, we talked with the school’s principal, Alexei Nichols, and fifth grade teacher Diana DaCorta. As you’ll hear, P.S. 340 is creating something that all schools – and parents – may want to learn from.

For more information, go to www.turnaroundusa.org/podcast.

Hal Smith: We Can’t Just Do the Same Things We've Always Done

When it comes to learning and thriving during the pandemic, many students have faced one obstacle after another - lack of access to high speed internet and devices, disconnection from teachers and friends, the cancellation of sports, clubs and church choirs.

 

But where many people see obstacles, Hal Smith sees opportunity.

 

Smith is Senior Vice President of Education, Youth Development & Health for the National Urban League and leads the organization’s programmatic, advocacy, policy and research work in those areas.

 

Across his career, Smith has focused on issues of educational opportunity, access and excellence for historically underserved communities wherever teaching, learning and development take place.

 

Which is why, as you’ll hear, Smith argues that the pandemic presents the chance to reimagine what school could look like – to seize the moment and try something better – grounded in the science of learning and development.

For more information, go to www.turnaroundusa.org/podcast.

John King: Getting Back to School Safely and Better

Education is among the highest stated priorities right out of the gates for the Biden Administration. Besides the obvious – getting kids and teachers back to school safely and quickly – major challenges remain around what some call “unfinished learning” and others call “learning loss” that have been revealed and exacerbated by the pandemic – as well as enduring and systemic questions of how to address gaps in equity, race, funding, and opportunity… as well as the best ways to integrate lessons from the Science of Learning and Development in reimagining education in America.

With each issue so urgent and so connected, how should the Department of Education prioritize them? Further, given our prized system of local school control, what exactly can a federal Department of Education do?

To find out, we spoke with Dr. John King, our nation’s 10th Secretary of Education who served under President Obama. King has dedicated his career to education. His parents were New York City public school teachers. He taught high school social studies in Puerto Rico and Boston. He served as a middle school principal. Today King is president and CEO of The Education Trust, a nonprofit organization that seeks to identify and close opportunity and achievement gaps, from preschool through college.

For more information, go to www.turnaroundusa.org/podcast.

When the Building is Closed but School is Open, with Ron Berger and Laina Cox

As schools try to determine how best to help students, the challenges, it seems, are everywhere: Health, safety, technology, food security, personal growth, and, of course, learning. Which is what makes learning about EL Education’s approach so useful.

EL Education guides a network of over 150 public schools in more than 30 states –  helping build schools in low-income communities that send all graduates to college through high student achievement, character and citizenship, while also building teacher capacity through professional coaching, resources and open-source curriculum.

But how does it work? And in particular, how are the program’s fundamentals helping students, parents, teacher, and administrators maintain learning and growing.

To learn more, we spoke with Ron Berger and Laina Cox. Ron is Chief Academic Officer for EL Education, and Laina is Principal at Capital City Public Charter Middle School in Washington D.C.

As you’ll hear in this part one of our two-part conversation, a lynchpin to EL’s success is something called Crew robust advisories that form human connections, and the connections in EL schools form a community.

For more information, go to www.turnaroundusa.org/podcast.

You Can't Separate Character from Student Success, with Ron Berger and Laina Cox

Today we continue our conversation with Ron Berger and Laina Cox.

Ron is Chief Academic Officer for EL Education, and has been with the group since its founding.Ron is Chief Academic Officer for EL Education, which guides a network of over 150 public schools in more than 30 states – helping build schools in low-income communities that send all graduates to college through high student achievement, character and citizenship, while also building teacher capacity through professional coaching, resources and open-source curriculum. 

Laina is one of those educators and administrators who bring EL’s vision to life, as Principal at Capital City Public Charter Middle School in Washington D.C.

In fact, today’s conversation focuses even more in depth on what exactly that means in Laina’s school – literally, how they do it. In this conversation, Ron and Laina also take on the question more broadly – looking at learning in America today – and address some of the broader social questions of how learning can and should work in the face of a pandemic, social unrest, and more.

For more information, go to www.turnaroundusa.org/podcast.