[Weekly EdNews Round Up] The Ripple Effect of West Virginia Teacher’s Victory

No one knows better than educators about the importance of staying up-to-date. In Edmentum’s Weekly News Round Up, you’ll find the latest and most interesting education news, all in one place.

After nine days, the teacher’s strike in West Virginia finally came to a close on Tuesday when state lawmakers reached a deal to raise teacher salaries by 5 percent. But even though the walkout is over in West Virginia, a national movement may have just begun. Read about this topic and more in this week’s Ed News Round Up.

The Ripple Effect of the West Virginia Teachers' Victory
The Atlantic
The success of the statewide strike has intensified education unrest nationally—and could have lasting implications for the country’s schools.

Rethinking Grade Levels and School Design for Personalized Learning
The Hechinger Report
A Chicago school’s openness to multiage classrooms gives both students and teachers extra choice and support. Besides offering more tailored learning experiences for students, the flexible, ever-changing structure in West Belden gives teachers a sense of choice and empowerment.

What Happened to the Teacher Workday?
EdWeek
What was once a designated day of teacher-selected, curriculum-driven tasks has now become a district-level decision to deliver “sit ‘n git” professional development, to take teachers out of their classrooms and away from collaboration with colleagues.

Five Ways Educators Can Help Families Make Better Use of Tech Outside the Classroom
EdSurge
Even as schools continue to invest heavily in technology on campus, we are still staring down what experts call the “device gap,” where students from lower-income backgrounds don’t have the same digital access as their middle-class peers. For students and classrooms, that divide can have real impact.

Can Online Learning Level the AP Playing Field for Rural Students?
MindShift
Providing a rigorous pre-college curriculum has long been a struggle in many of the more than 7,100 U.S. rural school districts, where a lack of teachers, dwindling enrollment numbers and tight budgets make it difficult to offer electives, foreign languages and even basic classes that are a given in many suburban and urban schools. But thanks to an experimental class of high schoolers in the Mississippi Delta, there may just be an answer.

Five Ways to Reignite Your Passion for Teaching
Greater Good Magazine
Even the best work can wear us down. How do we find inspiration and purpose again? Explore five ways to train yourself to celebrate the parts of your work that give you meaning.

What’s the Right Amount of Homework?
edutopia
Decades of research show that homework has some benefits, especially for students in middle and high school—but there are risks to assigning too much. Students in high school gain the most, while younger kids benefit much less.