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Dear John,

It is week 212 of our new reality and this week we are thinking about books.

“The National Center for Education Statistics reports that, in 2023, 14 percent of 13-year-olds read for fun almost every day; that number was 2.5 times higher as recently as 1984,” writes Doug Lemov in an article ([link removed]) for Education Next. “Meanwhile, 31 percent of 13-year-olds never or hardly ever read, almost a fourfold increase from 1984.”

Lemov notes that these days “​​even in classrooms, books are few and far between … In fact, the National Council of Teachers of English recently announced its support for the idea of ‘decenter[ing] book reading’ in English language arts education. They suggest instead ‘critically examining digital media and popular culture’ as a more worthwhile pursuit.”

How big a problem are these bookless classrooms?

“Books are powerful—potentially the most powerful form of written discourse—and centering them in the curriculum is important, especially given the data that students read less and less on their own,” Lemov argues. “Students should learn that understanding sometimes requires struggle. At times, accessing the world of ideas encoded in books means struggling to understand archaic syntax, say, and having to read a passage two or three times … I can’t imagine it will be a good thing when only a small number of experts can extract meaning from On the Origin of Species or the U.S. Constitution.”

As we work to bring the future of education to life, it’s crucial that we keep some of the best historic forms of learning front and center. As Lemov explains: “Books are the ideal vehicle to both inform us and link us together.”

Last week ([link removed]) , we looked at changes in how kids are learning to read in the aftermath of Sold a Story and examined how HawaiiKidsCAN is bringing tutoring, career and open learning to kids through library partnerships.

Today, we look at two of the most exciting new models of schools and districts providing students with a clear path to a career.
Best,

Marc Porter Magee, PhD
50CAN Founder and CEO

@marcportermagee ([link removed])

Give students the advantage of internships

“We know the academics are important, but we realized that no matter how strong their academics are, if they don’t have that networking, professional experience and the soft skills, they are not able to be truly ready to go to college and truly ready to grow into a career,” Rahul Jyoti, the readiness director of Victory College Prep ([link removed]) , a charter high school in Indianapolis told ([link removed]) The 74 Million.

Every Friday, Victory College Prep sends over one hundred students–the entirety of their junior and senior class–to veterinary hospitals, daycare providers, nonprofits and local technology companies to learn about the world of work through an internship. Most of the partners working with the school are small businesses, and a key to success has been the efforts of Victory’s team to make offering internships easy and appealing. “Chad Miller, managing director of Miller Insurance Group, said his small business couldn’t take on a full-time intern, but Victory organizes the program, has students go to businesses for a reasonable amount of time and even gives employers a guide on how to help students,” the 74 Million continued.

And while staff originally grappled with the costs of losing a day for math and English instruction, Jyoti says the benefits far outweigh those costs: “We ended up having our juniors and seniors be the most professional students, being more successful in college and being really engaged in presenting themselves after they graduate because they’ve had so many of these experiences.” In addition, Jyoti said faculty found higher levels of engagement during core instructional days due to the Friday internships, resulting in a net learning gain for the students.

* The task this week is to examine how to learn from examples like Victory to scale up internship programs so that every student has access.

Experiment with new ways to help students gain business experience

What if instead of sending high students out to businesses to get experience, you brought the business inside the high school itself?

That is exactly what one school in Forney Independent School District is doing with Opportunity Central, a 350,000 square foot high school campus located just outside of Dallas. “At the intersection of Inspiration Boulevard and Innovation Way sits an experiment in education,” reports ([link removed]) Jason Whitely for ABC News. “Businesses are moving in on the first floor of the campus. At least 10 have already made commitments to set up at Opportunity Central … Here’s what else is rare; Forney’s students don’t just learn how to be employees, they learn how to run the business.”

At the same time, Opportunity Central is raising the bar on the academic opportunities provided to students: “Texas Tech University, Dallas College, and Trinity Valley Community College will also have offices on site to offer dual credit programs, certifications and degrees for high school and adult learners.”

Altogether, over two dozen businesses–all run and managed by students–are slated to move into the school over the next year. Among those businesses is a 7,000-seat arena, one of the largest in the Dallas suburbs, where a team of students will book artists, market events and sell tickets. In all of the businesses, students will be paid hourly, but in a nod to their budding entrepreneurship, they’ll also make 20% commission on new business arrangements that they create.

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"Part-time Principal, Part-Time CEO" Melissa Crabtree meets with students between classes and work shifts

Most interesting, however, is the price point. Superintendent Dr. Justin Terry notes that construction of Opportunity Central came in at $100 million less than the cost of building a new, standard high school and it will generate on-going revenue through the leases paid by the businesses. That has piqued the interest of others, with dozens of district officials from around the country slated to visit and experience the Opportunity Central firsthand over the coming years.

* The task this week is to share the Opportunity Central story and explore other ideas for reinventing the American high school.


Cohort VI of National Voices kicked off last week in Washington DC, where fellows met in-person for the first time, practiced their on-camera skills in an intensive media training and participated in seminar discussions of readings related to partisanship, race, technology and institutions. “I felt like we were collegial and substantive without being judgmental,” fellow Sam Duell said of the diverse, bipartisan group. “That meant there was an openness and a willingness to engage in real conversation.”

Fellow Nasiyah Isra-Ul, the youngest member of the cohort agreed, “Being a young education reform advocate, I have experienced situations where I haven’t been taken seriously. Here, I felt empowered to share my passions with the world in a space the nurtured my curiosity.”

The fellows of Cohort VI are already hard at work. Lauren May penned ([link removed]) an op-ed for The Hill on rising Catholic school enrollment in Florida as a result of the state's choice scholarship. She followed that up with a weekend appearance ([link removed]) on Fox and Friends.

Transform Education Now and their partners have advanced HB1448 out of the education committee. The bill significantly reforms Colorado’s school funding formula, with a student-centered outlook similar to our network’s prior wins in Tennessee and Connecticut. The new formula will allocate funds according to student need and ensure additional resources are available for low-income, multilingual learners and special education students, with an additional $500 million added to the budget. Additionally, the bill invests in targeted school renovations, rural communities, small school districts and marginalized students. The bill now moves to appropriations. We’ll be sure to update you on further progress.

ConnCAN’s educator certification bill passed out of the education committee and is now up on the House calendar. The bill shifts certification and renewal requirements and sets up a permanent standards board. Alongside the legislation, the team is working with the State Department of Education to increase certification reciprocity with other states, allocate funds for higher ed scholarships and strengthen statewide Grow-Your-Own programs.

Two-thirds of microschool founders report serving students who are neurodivergent, according to a new research by the National Microschooling Center, as reported ([link removed]) by The 74 Million.

Liz Cohen at FutureEd provides ([link removed]) six ideas for scaling of high-quality tutoring programs, including identifying federal funding like AmeriCorps to sustain programs over time.

Education Next reports ([link removed]) on online tutoring’s “5% problem.” While Khan Academy’s study of 99 districts using their program found students who fully participated gained several months of extra learning, less than 5% of students used the program with the needed regularity to achieve those gains.

Tim Daly, former president of The New Teacher Project, is out with candid reflections on the push to adopt state-wide teacher evaluation policies, from a history of the idea to its rapid spread. Part 1 ([link removed]) and Part 2 ([link removed]) are available now, Part 3 (covering the collapse of the reform) will arrive soon.

38% of New York City students received computer science instruction during the 2021-2022 school year, according to a new study ([link removed]) from the Urban Institute, but significant race and income access gaps persist.

34 states passed 80 laws related to work-based learning, according to a new report ([link removed]) from the
Center for American Progress.

Brookings finds ([link removed]) that administrators report having more difficulty in filling CTE positions than academic positions in their schools, noting that there are still too many barriers to entry and that many prospects make more money in the private sector.


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NewMexicoKidsCAN Executive Director Amanda Aragon received a “Friends of the Fellows” award from Teach Plus Executive Director Hope Morales. Presented at Teach Plus’s End of Year Showcase, the award is the result of a collaboration between the organizations over the past year, where the NewMexicoKidsCAN team supported the fellows on legislation and policy work.

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