June 4, 2010
While a $1.2 billion budget sounds big, expenses within MPS have been going up faster than revenue. Michelle Nate is the head of finance and operations. She says for example, one of the district’s biggest funding sources, state aid, has declined three years in a row. At the same time, costs such as for employee […]
June 4, 2010
School districts plan to continue legal action against the state this summer even though legislators didn’t make further cuts to education funding for next school year, according to their attorney. The first goal of legal action by Schools For Fair Funding, a coalition of 74 districts including Hays USD 489, was to stop more cuts […]
June 4, 2010
What has been perhaps the most persistent area of disagreement between Gov. James Douglas and Democratic lawmakers during his time in office likely ended Thursday, with a whimper rather than a bang. Douglas, who will leave office in January, allowed a school consolidation bill to become law without signing it, underscoring his dissatisfaction with the […]
June 4, 2010
Laura Drews has converted a corner of her San Jose dining room into a public school. Every weekday, she guides her first-, fifth- and eighth-grade children through their class assignments, delivered through textbooks and desktop computers. The Drews’ unorthodox education is paid for by taxpayers, but created and operated by a for-profit company based in […]
June 4, 2010
The School Committee has given its support for the Southern Maine Special Education Collaborative. The collaborative is intended to save money for the five school districts taking part: Kittery, Wells-Ogunquit, SAD 35 (Eliot and South Berwick), SAD 60 (North Berwick and Lebanon) and York. The agreement, which York agreed to on Wednesday, takes effect July […]
June 4, 2010
On May 27th, the Institute for Education Sciences – the research arm of the U.S. Department of Education – released the Condition of Education, its annual report to Congress and the White House which reviews 49 indicators of important trends in U.S. education, including a special section dedicated to analyzing high-poverty schools. The report – […]
June 4, 2010
On June 1, 2010, Governor Charlie Crist provided an opportunity for Florida’s students and teachers to garner more than $700 million in education funding with the submission of the state’s application for Phase 2 funding in the federal Race to the Top grant competition. In addition to the support of 65 of Florida’s 67 school […]
June 4, 2010
With stimulus funds boosting one side and the sucker punch of the state’s negative inflation factor bruising the other, the Worcester public schools budget proposal will limp into City Hall this afternoon at 0.1 percent lighter than the current budget. The School Committee will meet from 4 to 6 p.m. for the first of two […]
June 3, 2010
For students, June marks the beginning of the countdown to summer vacation. But for teachers and other school employees across northern Massachusetts, it is often the cruelest month. With the economic turndown showing few signs of letting up, more than 100 educators are expected to receive pink slips from school districts in Beverly, Haverhill, Lowell, […]
June 3, 2010
Gov. Brad Henry on Tuesday signed the state’s second Race to the Top application, which described Oklahoma’s education reforms and the requested $175 million in funding as "a watershed for the Sooner State." Thirty-five states and the District of Columbia applied for the second round of federal stimulus funds, pledging a number of education reforms […]