DOWNLOAD the A4L Quarterly Newsletter, September 2022 >>
Back to School
foreword by Larry Fruth II, PhD—Exec Director/CEO, A4L Community & SDPC
I love taking inventory on how people view this yearly life benchmark. One of my sons in K12 was so ready to go back and stop his summer job while the other wanted his summer and work to go on forever. I don’t even need to tell you how my teaching wife was not ready to go back yet! Being virtual, it means more productive work for me.
Being born and genetically linked into an education family, our get togethers often turn to discussions and even arguments over current ed trends and policies. Many years ago, when I was still in the high school classroom, I was involved in writing numerous pieces on the future of teaching and the tsunami coming, on lack of passionate practitioners for classrooms across the county. It took a longer than I thought, and I did not have the crystal ball to predict COVID, but all indicators point to this becoming a growing crisis.
When SIF was formed as a non-profit, we even worked with the DC Administration in outlining a “Race to the Top” for the teaching profession. In doing research for those conversations, surveys clearly indicated that money was not the driver in keeping qualified teachers – a common misconception. The REAL frustration point then and even today from practitioners, is a lack of time. We continuously add more responsibilities and expectations to classroom teachers and don’t provide them the time to do the work.
So, what does that mean for this Community? I try to always have us think about “are we really changing the way kids learn” in all we do. The BEST way as a standards organization we can make that claim is to streamline and simplify how teachers and learners’ access and utilize technology safely and securely every day.
This is why we need you and your organization involved in the work. Our successes will allow teachers to do what they do best – teach!
Now back to packing the kids to get on the bus – like it or not!
Global Community News:
Welcome new members!; A4L Community releases SIF Infrastructure Specification supporting lightweight providers of data; Quality Assurance Program; Where is A4L?; A4L Community Response To Federal Register RFI On Advancing Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (PETs); We Have an API for that…; Project Unicorn and A4L Partnership; and Community Project Team updates
AU Community News:
Wishing Bruce Rigby all the best!; and AU Technical /DSWG update
NA Community News:
Unity Specification in Community Review; and CEDS Alignment Team turns its attention to the Civil Rights Data Collection
Student Data Privacy Consortium (SDPC) News:
2022 Elections: Voting now open!; GESS Project Team update; National Data Privacy Agreement (NDPA) v2 update; How are Schools and Learners Using Technology?; An Open Letter In Response To The FTC Policy Statement; and The SDPC Applauds The Work In The MA House In H. 127