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ExtraOrdinary Districts

ExtraOrdinary Districts

Karin Chenoweth

Fierce advocates for the high academic achievement of all students — particularly those of color or living in poverty.
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Top 10 ExtraOrdinary Districts Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best ExtraOrdinary Districts episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to ExtraOrdinary Districts for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite ExtraOrdinary Districts episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

ExtraOrdinary Districts - The “Science of Reading”

The “Science of Reading”

ExtraOrdinary Districts

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03/26/21 • 70 min

The last results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed no progress and some indicators even declined, meaning few children are reading at an advanced or proficient level.

Partly because of those disappointing results and partly because of a series of podcasts by American Public Media’s Emily Hanford, a growing number of educators, parents, advocates, and policymakers have become interested in incorporating the “science of reading” into reading instruction in hopes of improving the reading ability of American children.

And the science of reading forms a large part of the call of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) to state superintendents and commissioners to focus on reading instruction. The CCSSO especially asked state superintendents and commissioners to ensure that teachers understand how to incorporate the findings of the National Reading Panel Report, published in 2000. That report said that research supported teaching five elements of reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension strategies.

But this is a complicated topic. The science of how people read, which is the province of cognitive science and neuroscience, doesn’t always translate seamlessly with the science of reading instruction.

In this conversation, Karin Chenoweth and Tanji Reed Marshall talk with nationally known reading researcher Timothy Shanahan, who helped lead the National Reading Panel, and neuroscientist Donald Joseph Bolger about the tension. “Translating the research findings into practice,” Bolger said, is “difficult for people who want to know what to do and how to do it—who want a silver bullet.” That, he said, “is not the world that scientists live in.” Instead his goal at the University of Maryland School of Education, he said, is to “make teachers aware of all the components of reading” because they will need to be able to diagnose whatever struggles students have with learning to read.

Shanahan said the fact that almost all methods of teaching reading will result in some students learning to read has confused the question of what the best method of teaching reading is. Everything “works” to some degree, he said. “What we mean when we say ‘it works,’” he said, is that “when kids get explicit teaching on that particular thing, on average they do better.”

In other words, reading research works for improvements on the margin. “About 35 percent of our children are proficient in reading,” Shanahan said. “It doesn’t have to be that way, but it does mean we have to make an effort to get those marginal gains, because that’s what we mean by ‘it works.’”

But, he cautioned that there is more to reading instruction than just the science. For example, schools are often organized so that the students who need the most thoughtful instruction are provided the newest, least prepared teachers who, once they gain experience and expertise, often leave those classrooms.

“The kids are fine,” he said. “The problem...is that they are not in supportive environments.”

Shanahan says he hopes the CCSSO report will help educators figure out ways to accelerate learning following what is sure to be some drops in reading proficiency during the school building closures during the coronavirus pandemic.

This is the second time Shanahan has been part of the ExtraOrdinary Districts podcast. The first time was when he was on a panel discussing the reading instruction in Cottonwood and Lane Oklahoma, which was part two of Season 2, a season in which we focused closely on the kind of reading instruction three successful and improving districts provided.

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ExtraOrdinary Districts - Opening a School Building in the Time of COVID
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03/05/21 • 47 min

Schools have come under increasing pressure to reopen their buildings so that students can attend in person again. But those who insist that schools are safe don’t often acknowledge the work that must be done in order to make them safe. Jennifer Robbins, principal of Ladd Acres Elementary School in Hillsboro, Oregon, talks about the many things that have had [...]
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ExtraOrdinary Districts - Finding the “Missing Kids”

Finding the “Missing Kids”

ExtraOrdinary Districts

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02/05/21 • 64 min

When schools closed abruptly in March 2020 because of the pandemic, it was reported that 8,000 of Baltimore’s students had not logged into remote schooling. Roger Shaw is the district administrator whose responsibility it was to find them and find out what was keeping them from school. But the number was daunting, and he began with a strategy that included [...]
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One where educators take responsibility to help students thrive, excel, and be intellectually curious. More than 30 years ago, Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski III began a small program at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. With a core set of principles that include high expectations and collaboration, UMBC’s Meyerhoff Program has since produced hundreds of scientists, professors, and leaders, including [...]
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Pandemic schooling has been difficult at Malverne High School in Nassau County New York, but social studies teacher Brian China says that his AP social studies class is only four days behind last year. “Under these circumstances, we’re making it work.” At Malverne, a little more than 30 percent of students are fully remote, and the rest of the students [...]
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Steubenville City Public Schools had as its goal operating as normally as possible this school year, so educators spent the spring and summer learning computer programs, putting lessons online, buying computers and hot spots, and clicking together plexiglass desk dividers. “We’ve probably gone through more change since March than I did through my entire career,” Superintendent Melinda Young says. One [...]
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ExtraOrdinary Districts - It’s Amazing How Much Kids Adapt & Learn.
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12/18/20 • 53 min

After a fall of flipping between opening and closing school buildings, Godwin Heights Public Schools in western Michigan responded to a huge spike in community spread of coronavirus by deciding to close before Thanksgiving until at least January 19. Part of the decision rested on the fact that it had become difficult to fully staff schools as bus drivers, janitorial [...]
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“We have a third of our kids in every day. But one hundred percent of our students are learning every single day” In this episode of Season Four of The Education Trust’s podcast, ExtraOrdinary Districts, Nicholas Stirling, superintendent of Valley Stream 30 in Nassau County New York, is joined by assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction Jennifer Lewner and three [...]
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In this inaugural episode of Season Four of The Education Trust’s podcast, ExtraOrdinary Districts, Sergio Garcia, principal of Artesia High School in ABC Unified District in Los Angeles County, is joined by two teachers: William Napier, chair of the special education department and Stephanie Palutzke, acting dean. Napier and Palutzke are also the school’s teacher union representatives, and they and [...]
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ExtraOrdinary Districts - Districts That Succeed

Districts That Succeed

ExtraOrdinary Districts

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04/23/21 • 48 min

In the final episode of this season of ExtraOrdinary Districts, Tanji Reed Marshall interviews her co-host Karin Chenoweth about Chenoweth’s new book, Districts that Succeed: Breaking the Correlation Between Race, Poverty, and Achievement, which will be published May 25 by Harvard Education Press.

Be sure to subscribe to ExtraOrdinary Districts to be notified of new episodes when they come out.

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FAQ

How many episodes does ExtraOrdinary Districts have?

ExtraOrdinary Districts currently has 67 episodes available.

What topics does ExtraOrdinary Districts cover?

The podcast is about Podcasts, Government and Education.

What is the most popular episode on ExtraOrdinary Districts?

The episode title 'What Have We Heard? What Have We Learned?' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on ExtraOrdinary Districts?

The average episode length on ExtraOrdinary Districts is 42 minutes.

How often are episodes of ExtraOrdinary Districts released?

Episodes of ExtraOrdinary Districts are typically released every 6 days, 23 hours.

When was the first episode of ExtraOrdinary Districts?

The first episode of ExtraOrdinary Districts was released on Oct 30, 2017.

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