“What students remember most from school is rarely a test score. Ask them what
made school matter, and they will tell you: Someone understood me. We
figured something out together. My teacher believed I could do it.”
~ Educator Jessica Soloman
FACT: K-12 education technology spending hit $30 billion in 2024, and is expected to double that in 2033.
FACT: On this year’s National Assessment of Educational Progress, aka “the nation’s report card,” reading scores reached their lowest level in decades: just 29% of 4th graders scored in the proficient range, while just 30% of 8th graders did.
FACT: A new research study of more than 10,000 12-year-olds just published in the journal Pediatrics finds that “Early adolescents who get phones at younger ages are more likely to have obesity, be depressed, and not get enough sleep
1. A recent EdWeek Research Center survey found that, of 1,268 teachers:
** 56% said off-task behaviors on laptops, tablets, and/or desktops are a major source of student distraction and loss of learning time.
** 38% said the same thing about cell phones.
2. According to an Education Week tally:
** 27% of teachers said that 1-to-1 computing negatively impacts classroom management;
** 53% said it’s had a positive effect on student learning.
3. An August EdWeek Research Center survey found that:
** 90% of district leaders gave devices to middle and high school students.
** 84% gave them to elementary students.
4. iPhones arrived on the scene in 2007; now, 18 years later, 32 states have banned or restricted cellphones in schools, according to an Education Week tally.
5. About cell phone bans, a recent RAND Corporation report found that, among principals:
- 75% said banning cell phones “has had big upsides for student climate.
- 66% said it cut down on such behaviors as photographing classmates in bathrooms. and/or locker rooms and recording streaming school fights.
- 54% said it helped decrease cyberbullying during school hours.
- 44% said it decreased student distractions during emergency drills & emergencies.BUT:
- 05% of principals said it’s added to their workload, having to be the link between parents and their kids.
- 21% of parents stress not having a direct link to their kids, especially during emergencies.
- 10% of kids feel anxious no longer readily in contact with their parents.
MEANWHILE:
A recent Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study of 6,000 9-to-10-year-olds found that:
- 58% used little or no social media over the next few years.
- 37% were low-level users but by age 13 were using it one hour a day, and performed, on average, one to 2 points lower on reading and memory tasks than the non-users.
- 6% spent about 3 or more hours a day by age 13, and they performed 4 to 5 points lower on those tasks.
AND FINALLY:
Dictionary.com’s Word of the Year is Six Seven (67). The numbers received some 2 million TikTok posts, and now students shout them out whenever they show up, causing classroom chaos.
The Oxford University Press Word of the Year is “rage bait,” meaning: “online content designed to provoke anger and increase engagement.”
And so it goes nowadays…
~ With my thanks, Carol
