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What We’re Reading: Week of March 14, 2022

March 18, 2022

Happy Friday! We hope you are enjoying the extra hour of sunlight. This week, we’re reading stories on the Linked Learning champion Cindy Brown in Porterville, the power of work-based learning on economic mobility, and listening to a podcast from Oakland USD young people on racial equity. As always, thanks for reading, and listening, with us!


Linked Learning in the News
2022 Wall of Fame inductees: Committed to serve, The Porterville Recorder
Congratulations to Cindy Brown, Director of Pathways for Porterville Unified School District and Linked Learning Fellow, for being named a 2022 Porterville Wall of Fame honoree!


Assessment
High school grades are up, but test scores aren’t. Why?, Chalkbeat
The new analysis, released by an arm of the U.S. Department of Education, tracks transcripts of a representative sample of high school graduates in 1990, 2000, 2009, and 2019. The trends it finds are at once striking and puzzling, suggesting that teachers are adopting more lenient grading policies or that students’ improved skills aren’t being well measured by standardized tests.


College and Career Readiness
Principal’s View: To Prepare Students to Enter a Tech-Focused Business World, Create Schools With the Workplace in Mind, The 74 Million
Today’s problems can't be solved with yesterday’s solutions. It is essential to provide students with quality teaching and the same high-tech resources they'll be using once they graduate, writes Michael Meechin.


Equity
If we truly want a level playing field, we must focus on social capital, The Campus
For historically underrepresented students to really benefit from higher education, they need support to understand the world of work, build connections and activate networks, writes Andy Chan and Kristina Francis.

Racial Affinity Groups (Creating Space to Talk about Race, Episode 2), The Young and the Woke
In this episode of The Young and the Woke, guest host and producer Rose Khor shares the voices of a racially diverse group of students from Heath Madom's class at Oakland Tech. The students participated in racial affinity groups where they first divided into groups based on their racial identity to share their experiences and then, importantly, came back together as a whole group to listen to each of the groups offer their reflections.


High School
​​10-year study: GPAs, course rigor rising for high school grads, K-12 Dive
Compared to high school graduates 10 years earlier, students in the class of 2019 earned more credits, attained higher grade point averages, and took more STEM courses. Yet at the same time, their national average score decreased on the 12th-grade math portion of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, data from the newly released NAEP High School Transcript Study showsi look.


Higher Education
Students Will Get An Extra Month To Apply For Financial Aid, Which A Lot Of Them Still Have To Do, LAist
California students attending or hoping to attend a four-year college next fall now have an extra month to apply for state financial aid. On Thursday, the California Student Aid Commission announced that the deadline to apply for a state Cal Grant is now April 1.

The Power of Work-Based Learning, Strada Education Network
Applied connections between education and work are increasingly a part of undergraduate education in the United States. Among students who have work-based learning experiences, those with paid internships stand out for their increased earning power, confidence in themselves, and recognition of the value of their education.


Leadership
The Current State of the Superintendency: 4 Things to Know, EdWeek
Superintendents have had to pivot to endless changes in masking and health policy during COVID-19. They’ve faced disruptive school board meetings, as fractious national politics have come home to roost. They are now in charge of spending a wave of federal cash meant to help students catch up academically. In light of these pressures, Education Week took a look at the state of the superintendent force.