New student behavior data-how schools can better support students.

Some highlights from the article:

•Access more information from the report. Top challenges in more than half of the country’s schools were students being unprepared or disruptive in the classroom, according to the Department of Education’s research arm in its 2023-24 School Pulse data release. 

•Disengagement.

“For 40-45% of schools, student learning and staff morale was also limited by students’ “trouble” working with partners or in groups and use of cell phones, laptops, or other tech when not permitted. In 75% of schools, students’ “lack of focus” moderately or severely negatively impacted learning and staff morale.” 

•The politicalization of education is spilling into schools.

“Look what these students have gone through … not only the pandemic, through wars. Through a tumultuous, divisive political environment in the last six or seven years that’s only intensifying between right and left, between Black and white, between immigrant and non-immigrant. [Those separations] are filtering into schools and classes, perhaps with an awareness that we have not had before,” said Ron Astor, UCLA professor of social welfare and expert on bullying, school violence and culture.”

•A new report from Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation surveyed more than 1,000 Gen Z students between the ages of 12 to 18, finding that less than half enrolled in middle or high school felt motivated to go to school. About half said they do something interesting in school every day. The report found the most influential driver of Gen Z students’ happiness is their “sense of purpose” at work and school, with more than 60 percent considering themselves happy.

•Cell phone bans.

From coast to coast, districts are weighing phone bans amid rising concerns about bullying and distractions. But some researchers say solely nixing phones without boosting mental health supports or addressing overall school culture wouldn’t curb the negative attitudes students may be forming about school and the purpose of their education. And when “collecting” phones…administrator warned that students’ addictive connections to their devices could create conflict when they are forced to surrender or get back their phones each day. The system requires a coordinated approach and an empathetic staff who can de-escalate charged emotions.

•Cultural competency. Do students see themselves reflected in the curriculum?

Framing students’ inability to focus as the cause for delay in learning recovery, “ignores the fact of why they’re maybe not motivated, why they’re not connected as they should be, why they don’t see themselves in the curriculum,” he added. “Why, when they did see themselves, they’re being taken out or not allowed to say or do things because they’re part of an oppressed group,” referencing book bans, history challenges, and restrictions on diversity, equity and inclusion curricula and positions.