Backtalk: Harnessing the power of career changers to address teacher shortages

School administrators across the country have been facing a worsening teacher shortage. Programs that attempt to fill gaps by promoting teaching among current high school students are helpful but cannot fill vacancies as quickly as is needed. Alan Mather of Golden Apple describes how their Accelerators program has begun inviting career changers and current college seniors who aren’t on an education track into their 15-month residency and licensure program. The program attracts professionals who are interested in teaching but lack the time or money for traditional preparation programs and puts them on a quicker path to teaching jobs in schools with high needs.

Four principles for assessing student-directed projects

Student-directed projects are a promising approach to supporting powerful learning, yet uncertainty about how to assess these projects presents a barrier to widespread incorporation in K-12 classrooms. Drawing on interviews with computer science teachers and an interdisciplinary literature review, Karen Brennan, Sarah Blum-Smith, and Paulina Haduong offer four principles to guide assessment of student-directed projects: recognizing the individuality of the learner, illuminating process, engaging multiple perspectives, and cultivating capacity for personal judgment. They describe the research behind these principles and provide and example of what they look like in practice.

How educational intermediaries connect research and practice

Indirect routes to strengthening research-practice connections, through intermediaries or knowledge brokers, have received little emphasis in discussions of education research and practice. Joel Malin compares direct and indirect approaches to making these connections and considers how indirect actors are situated in the education system and what roles and functions they perform. He describes some of the well-known intermediaries, assesses the effects of their efforts, and offers ideas for moving forward.

The editor’s note: Time to invest in rural education

For decades, the needs of rural schools and students have received scant media and policy attention and have had to make do with insufficient funds. As Rafael Heller explains, the current education policy landscape is opening up opportunities for rural education advocates to press for the kinds of reforms that could improve both rural school and their communities overall.

Reimagining american education: Possible futures: Possible futures for equitable educational assessment

The COVID-19 pandemic led states and districts to take a break from grading students and pause standardized testing. As part of an ongoing series of articles on how schools might reconceptualize their work, William Penuel considers what kinds of assessment practices should be carried forward, as schools attempt to become more equitable. He suggests that schools look to work students create as evidence of learning, that they ensure their assessment practices recognize students’ various cultures, and that they use student work to make connections with families and community members.

Helping new teachers stay and thrive in rural schools

Among the many challenges facing rural administrators, recruiting and retaining teachers is often at the top of the list. Given the time and energy they must invest to successfully attract, recruit, and hire a new teacher, there is a significant need to adopt strategies that will help to retain those new teachers. Rural administrators can support new teachers so that they stay — and thrive — in rural districts by connecting teachers with the community, supporting place-based practices in the classroom, and helping new teachers build relationships both in and out of school.

Bookshelf: Kappan authors on their favorite reads

In this monthly column, Kappan authors discuss books and articles that have informed their views on education. Devon Brenner recommends The Bloomsbury Handbook of Rural Education in the United States edited by Amy Price Azano, Karen Eppley, and Catharine Biddle. Joni Lakin recommends How Schools Really Matter: Why Our Assumption About Schools and Inequality Is Mostly Wrong by Douglas Downey.

Putting rural communities at the center: A conversation with Sky Marietta

Sky Marietta, co-author of Rural Education in America: What Works for Our Students, Teachers, and Communities, talks with Kappan about her experiences as a rural student, teacher, and scholar. She describes some of the misconceptions about rural schools and communities and shares some of the assets of living and going to school in a rural environment. As an advocate for a more rural-centered approach to education improvement, she urges researchers, funders, policy makers to learn more about these communities and partner with them to develop leaders within the community.

On leadership: When activists speak with sound and fury

School board meetings have become increasingly contentious in recent months, but, as Josh Starr explains, the tactics activists are using are not new. During his career as a district leader, he saw parents and other members of the public approach school boards with constant demands that their particular concerns receive attention. When these issues are on the fringe or outside the board’s purview, yet activists engage in increasingly outrageous behavior, leaders develop the habit of tuning out public voices, which serves no one.

When five shrinks to four: Assessing the four-day school week in rural locales

In rural school districts across the country, four-day school weeks have proliferated. Currently adopted in 1,600 schools in 600 school districts, 90% of which are rural, four-day school week policies have prospered largely without a robust body of evidence to support their expansion. J. Cameron Anglum presents an overview of four-day school week policy expansion and describes a few of the studies into its effects on students, families, and communities.