I read a piece in one of the weekly education publications; a superintendent had been quoted warning of the funding cliff coming in two years. This supe seemed to be making the best of it, not spending his stimulus money so he could avoid the unavoidable cliff.

I couldn’t tell whether the supe was taken out of context, but I have to believe he was.

Why in the world would you be reluctant to spend a windfall just because that windfall will soon be coming to an end? Imagine all the good you could do for the learners you have now with that fortune in cash and prizes. Go for it! Squeeze every ounce of learning from the good fortune you have before you. And don’t worry. You can go back to hand-wringing in two years if you’d like.

I could argue that districts always have money, it is just a matter of the decisions they make. But that is another discussion for another day. In the meantime, smile. Bigger. SMILE. You have two years’ worth of Extrabucks to spend.

Would you like some spending suggestions? I believe if you follow at least 50 percent of my recommendations, you’ll feel great, and your students will be running faster and jumping higher by Easter (with apologies to PF Flyers).

Here they are:

Cognitive testing, cognitive skills training, and cognitive testing again

According to our Internationally recognized experts Betsy Hill and Roger Stark, “Evidenced-based, brain-building activities are among the most accessible and direct routes to improving academic achievement and optimal mental health in our nation’s youth, especially when reinforced throughout childhood and adolescence.” We have known this for years, but we have been particularly slow to share this knowledge with our teachers, either in schools of education or through professional development. Evidence-based programs that strengthen cognitive skills can have amazing results for learners. And unlike many programs that must be repeated every year, a good “dose” of cognitive training can pay dividends for a learner’s lifetime.

Take a Trip in the Metaverse

Back in the 70s, singer Jim Stafford wrote, “Wildwood weed grew wild on the farm, and we never knew what it was called. Some said it was a flower, some said it was a weed, but I never gave it much thought.” Now, with virtual reality and learning opportunities in the Metaverse, your students can take a trip and never leave the farm. Even through higher ed is leading the charge with 10 fully functioning Metaversities opening this Fall, K-12 is getting into the game as well. Whether it is through VR field trips or science experiments, getting your students into the Metaverse will not only be fun and exciting, but it will also give them some very sticky learning time. Their academic performance will be off the charts, and they will thank you for it.

Rearrange Time and Space through Hybrid Logistics

Hybrid Logistics is an emerging disruptive technology that precisely uses human teachers for their skills with students. Since teachers are not always tied to a classroom, they can roam to help individual students but still have live human teaching moments to lecture, hold discussions, and do hands-on projects. Schools do not need to change every part of their current structure but can use a Hybrid Logistics Infrastructure to personalize learning paths during study hall time for subjects like electives and remedial learning.

A Hybrid Logistics Infrastructure does not make all learning online or remote. It is the long-desired middle ground between online and on-campus.

• A new technology to help schools overcome the teacher shortage.
• A transformation that goes beyond personalization to individual experiential learning.

Hybrid logistics changes systemic inequities by a restructure of space and time use towards personalized pace for every student. Workloads for teachers now focus most of their time on direct instruction and those more poignant but less frequent class intersections. A side effect is new careers open in education that haven’t been there before. Hybrid Logistics is the first use of algorithms to make space and time use “uberized.”

Create a 360 Degree View of Data (and Your Learner)

According to Learning Counsel author and head of Abre.io James Stoffer, data consolidation to drive better data-driven decisions and deeper relationships with all stakeholders (especially students) may be the single biggest challenge facing K-12 education today. Consider these three simple facts:

• Districts are data rich, yet information poor.
• Staff and parents are absolutely overwhelmed by the incoming volume of tech and data.
• Students have little to no access to their own data.

In most districts, there is not one dedicated place that a teacher, counselor, or parent can go to see a complete picture of the whole child, for the purposes of asking the one simple question that should be asked every day: How is this student doing? So many districts are so close to putting it all together, to getting a 360-degree view of their students, of connecting families, staff, and partners on one platform. Once they do, they will be amazed at the difference it makes.

Straighten the Career Pathways for Your Students

According to GG4L CEO and Learning Counsel author Robert Iskander, have your students start by identifying a few career pathways that are interesting, then find out how to get trained and certified in the skills required for these high-demand jobs. There are 6-month certificates available from several online educational providers, such as Coursera’s Career Academy program, that would offer these students affordable online training and certification programs parallel to their high school or college classes. Most times, they are available for free, funded by corporate sponsors such as Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. If you have graduating students who are concerned about what is going on around the world, have them think about how to plan your short-term career pathway now. There are many well-paying career opportunities that do not require a college or university degree. Postponing higher education by one or two years may not be such a bad idea, as it would allow them to try an acceptable profession while earning a decent income for the next couple of years. Eventually, one of their employers may subsidize the cost of a higher education degree while working part time. Why apply for a loan now when they are not 100 percent certain which higher education degree pathway they would like to take?

Your actual mileage may vary

These suggestions are just a few of hundreds of things you can do right away to improve the lives of your students. And my guess is you have even more you would like to do. It just so happens that these recommendations are not costly and would add so much to your learning programs. That is the beauty of education. You don’t always have to break the bank to change lives. But you do have to act now. If you don’t, the windfall from Uncle Sam will magically disappear. You will never even have to lift a finger. And no one will ever know.

But you will.

About the author

Charles Sosnik is an education journalist and editor and serves as Editor in Chief at the Learning Counsel. An EP3 Education Fellow, he uses his deep roots in the education community to add context to the education narrative. Charles is a frequent writer and columnist for some of the most influential media in education, including the Learning Counsel, EdNews Daily, EdTech Digest and (ET) Magazine. Unabashedly Southern, Charles likes to say he is an editor by trade and Southern by the Grace of God.