[Weekly EdNews Round Up] When it Comes to Encouraging Attendance, Extrinsic Motivation is Out

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.

For years, teachers have used attendance awards to try and encourage and reward students with the best attendance records. But a recent study has shown that attendance awards don’t work and might actually increase absenteeism. Is extrinsic motivation in the classroom officially out? Read this story and more in this week’s EdNews Round Up.

Extrinsic Motivation: It Might Be Even Worse Than You Thought
edutopia
In a recent study, attendance awards backfired, giving students a “license to miss more school” and actually driving absentee rates up.

Should Blue Light Glasses Be on Your Back-to-School Shopping List?
EdWeek
Blue light glasses, or filters, can help block light from digital devices. Given all the time kids spend these days on iPads and Chromebooks in school, parents should consider adding them to the back-to-school shopping list, one eye doctor suggested.

Educators Sound Alarm on Census Undercount of Children
U.S. News
Educators, school officials and community advocates are all hands on deck ahead of the looming school year, strategizing about how they leverage their resources and the trust they've built with families to ensure an accurate count.

Bonds built via tech-supported mentoring help carry at-risk students to graduation, college
Education Dive
Experts say it’s important for potential mentors to understand program expectations and have access to training.

Oregon Students Allowed to Take 'Mental Health Days' as Excused Absences
MindShift
Four local Oregon teens decicded to combat stigma around mental health illness and championed a proposed state law where students can take a mental health day as an excused absence. The law was passed and signed last month by Gov. Kate Brown and will take effect in the 2019--20 school year.

The Financial Calamity That Is the Teaching Profession
The Atlantic
Teachers are suing the government over debt relief that never came—but their financial problems go much deeper than student loans.

College students are increasingly forgoing summers off to save money, stay on track
The Hechinger Report
A growing number of students have started to forgo long summer breaks to cut costs and stay on track to graduation. And since many four-year institutions largely shut down between May and late August thanks to an academic calendar that predates the industrial era, many are going to community colleges.

Education policy is often a topic of conversation in state and federal legislatures. Stay in-the-know with this week’s top stories regarding education reform at the state and national level.

Mississippi teacher pay raise will cost $18.5M more than first estimated
WREG
The Mississippi Department of Education announced that a $1,500 raise for teachers will cost $18.5 million more than it originally informed lawmakers, months after local superintendents discovered a shortfall caused by the department’s ignorance of how teachers were classified in its own computer system.

Georgia, North Carolina join ESSA assessment pilot
Education Drive
The Innovative Assessment Demonstration Authority program lifts some federal requirements related to student testing and encourages models that give teachers more useful data on student learning.

Florida Department of Education targets prekindergarten improvements
Tampa Bay Times
Florida education department officials are taking steps to bolster the state-funded Voluntary Prekindergarten (VPK) program and turn it into the “truly really desired option” for early education, just two months after Gov. Ron DeSantis decried low readiness levels of children emerging from the system.

Don't Have Lunch Money? A Pennsylvania School District Threatens Foster Care
NPR
Dozens of families in the Wyoming Valley West School District received an alarming letter from their public school district this month informing parents that if their kid’s lunch debt was not settled, their child could be removed from their home and placed in foster care.

Oklahoma legislature needs long-term commitment to ensure new teachers
Enid News & Eagle
Oklahoma’s increased reliance on emergency certification to fill its classrooms with teachers is a troubling trend that must be reversed sooner rather than later. A record 3,038 teachers were admitted during this past school year through that credentialing process.