October 12, 2010
A group of seven school districts, including Los Angeles Unified, announced Monday that they would move ahead with reform plans developed for the recent federal Race to the Top school-reform grant competition. In August, California lost that bid—and with it up to $700 million in one-time funding during tight economic times. But state and district […]
October 12, 2010
From a windowless basement office on Chicago’s West Side, Greg White is trying to answer public education’s $2 million-dollar question: What is the top priority for a school in Chicago’s cash-strapped district? The answer for Mr. White, chief executive of the LEARN Charter School Network — which received two $1 million grants from Oprah Winfrey’s […]
October 12, 2010
To secure writing materials for her classroom, Sandi Sidor is willing to jump through a lot of hoops these days. Make that throw: "I will toss beanbags through anything for a packet of pens," says the fifth-grade teacher in Redlands, Calif., who seeks out competitions and fairs at office-supply stores in order to win a […]
October 12, 2010
Everybody loves a good story: including kids. That’s why the Harry Potter series and other fiction books are so popular. But will students love reading and writing when the subject is non-fiction? That’s the challenge for teachers as New York State begins phasing in new national standards. One Lower East Side middle school is getting […]
October 11, 2010
Do public school teachers get tenure just by breathing? It’s a claim made by a charter school leader in the education documentary Waiting for Superman, which places much of the blame for bad schools nationwide on union rules that protect incompetent teachers. Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced on national television last week that he would overhaul […]
October 11, 2010
Radio frequency identification — the same technology used to monitor cattle — is tracking students in the Spring and Santa Fe school districts. Identification badge s for some students in both school districts now include tracking devices that allow campus administrators to keep tabs on students’ whereabouts on campus. School leaders say the devices improve […]
October 11, 2010
Six weeks into the school year, thousands of students in Broward County schools are being transferred into a new classroom with a new teacher. Some fourth- and fifth-graders in Miami-Dade schools are being clumped into one class. And media specialists, guidance counselors, teacher trainers and athletic directors in both districts are working double duty teaching […]
October 11, 2010
A lot of people would like to rewrite the Kansas school finance formula — from Sen. Sam Brownback, the Republican candidate for governor, to members of the Legislature and maybe even some local school board members and superintendents around the state. But few agree on how to do it, or even what’s wrong with the […]
October 11, 2010
After enduring declining enrollment for more than 10 years and looking at a potential budget shortfall for this school year, Manawa School District closed its lone elementary school last June. The closure forced the district to consolidate operations in its remaining two buildings by moving children in kindergarten through third grade to the middle school […]
October 11, 2010
An average class at The Children’s School, a small elementary school in Park Slope, Brooklyn, has eight students with special needs and 17 without. The school helped pioneer the model of teaching special education students and general education students together, and here it works. "We have a broad range of abilities and disabilities and that’s […]