🛝 Exit Exams, National Spelling Bee, Absences

Welcome to Playground Post, a bi-weekly newsletter that keeps education innovators ahead of what's next.

Here's what we have on deck for today…

• Exit Exams Are Out. Career Pathways Are In

• The National Spelling Bee Shows Us What We Are Missing

• This School District Cut Absences by 12% Just by Asking Parents One Question

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Exit Exams Are Out. Career Pathways Are In.

Only six states still require high school exit exams, with New York and Massachusetts dropping the requirement this year. Washington State ditched its exit exam five years ago and replaced it with multiple graduation pathways. So far, the results are mixed.

About 1 in 5 seniors still don't have a pathway, meaning they're not on track to graduate. That's roughly the same as when the state required exit exams. Asian and white students dominate the college-prep routes, while Native students, English learners, and students with disabilities are more likely to have no pathway at all.

For education innovators, this creates a clear opening to create tools that help schools track students' pathway progress and flag at-risk kids before it's too late.

The National Spelling Bee Shows Us What We Are Missing

Last week, Faizan Zaki spelled "eclaircissement" and literally collapsed in victory at the 100th Scripps National Spelling Bee. The Dallas 7th grader practices an hour daily and studies for dozens more hours each week with his coach.

Extreme? Maybe. But here's what's wild: While Faizan was mastering etymology, most American schools were busy eliminating spelling tests entirely. Turns out, that's a massive mistake. And an even bigger opportunity.

Julie Masterson, a linguistics researcher at Missouri State, discovered something fascinating: Students who improve their spelling show even bigger gains in reading ability.

This School District Cut Absences by 12% Just by Asking Parents One Question

Hudson City school district in New York discovered some families believed that if a child's head gets wet in the rain, they'll catch a cold. Others didn't understand bus schedules. Some pushed strollers for miles in freezing weather because they had no car.

The district joined 16 others in a radical experiment to actually talk to families about why kids miss school. After months of surveys and conversations, chronic absenteeism dropped 12 percentage points.

If 1 in 4 students are chronically absent, that's roughly 12.5 million kids. Each absent day costs districts money and hurts outcomes. Yet most schools are still using 1950s tactics like threatening letters and truancy officers.

The experiment indicates that innovators looking to decrease chronic absenteeism may be able to build solutions that work by communicating with families and more directly responding to their concerns.

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We’ll be back with another edition on Tuesday. See you then!

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