What We’re Reading; Week of April 4, 2022

Happy Friday! It was an exciting week for the Linked Learning field as San Bernardino City USD celebrated new Gold and Silver certified pathways. If you are a Spanish speaker, be sure to check out the Telemundo 52 feature on their work. We’re also reading pieces on the impact of student-teacher relationships on instruction quality, Gen Z’s career anxieties and aspirations, and more. Thanks for reading with us!

Linked Learning in the News
Dos escuelas de San Bernardino reciben reconocimiento especial, Telemundo 52
Telemundo 52 visited San Bernardino City USD to learn more about the Linked Learning Gold Certified pathways at Arroyo Valley and Pacific High Schools.

Equity
The Anti-Racist Counternarrative Public Education Needs Now, EdWeek
Our school systems would benefit from banding together to begin a movement for anti-racism in schools by implementing six scalable steps to escape the reactionary trap that continues to perpetuate systemic racism in our public schools, writes Alexandria, VA superintendent Gregory C. Hutchings Jr.

High School
Has the federal government underestimated the progress of high school students for decades?, Chalkbeat
A growing number of researchers say it's a real possibility that we've been misunderstanding high school achievement for decades. High school dropout rates have fallen substantially since the 1970s, which means more students who would have left high school altogether are now taking these tests, known as NAEP. Comparing scores across decades without acknowledging that, these researchers say, paints a misleadingly grim picture of the country’s progress.

Leadership
Fears of a School Superintendent Exodus: With Data Revealing Massive Pandemic Turnover, New Survey Shows Another 1 in 4 Leaders Expect to ‘Leave Soon’, The 74 Million
More than a quarter of America’s superintendents plan to leave their posts imminently — and hundreds more are unsure they want to keep balancing pandemic-era 67-hour work weeks and staffing challenges, a new RAND survey of over 3,000 district leaders has found.

Student Supports
Positive student-teacher relationships boost instructional quality, K-12 Dive
Positive student-teacher relationships not only help students but benefit teachers in an interesting way — by leading them to use more challenging instructional techniques, which in turn improves students' academic achievement, according to research from the University of Missouri.

Workforce Development
Education Needs a Reset. We Can Start by Listening to Our Teachers., EdSurge
What too few politicians and parents are talking about is the dire state of the career pipeline for teachers, the ones we’ll be depending on to lead the post-pandemic learning recovery in our classrooms over the next few years—not to mention for the next generation, writes Elissa Vanaver.

Study: Gen Z Anxious About Skills, Career Clarity, SHRM
Employees who started work during the pandemic need help with professional readiness, resilience, new study finds.

Teenagers on the Journey Toward Good Lives, EdSurge
In 2021, nine students shared their hopes and fears about life after high school. Where did they end up?