January 18, 2010
Iowa’s K-12 public school districts will have to wait a year before they know how much state foundation aid funding they can expe ct for their fiscal 2012 budgets. The Senate voted 46-0 Thursday to delay for one year a statutory requirement to establish the percentage “allowable growth” increase for K-12 schools and accompanying educational […]
January 18, 2010
A funny thing happened today at the U.S. Department of Education’s expert hearing on how state procurement rules can affect the process of designing commo n assessments. It got interesting. I freely confess that I went in wondering if I would lapse into semi-consciousness, lost in the tall weeds of conversation about obscure regulations and […]
January 18, 2010
Dedication to Special Education, an all-volunteer parent group, will donate more than $85,000 to Marin classrooms this year through its Grants to Special Educators Program. The money will be used to purchase 20 computers, dozens of software programs designed for children with special needs, 15 portable memory keyboards, listening stations for audio books and more. […]
January 18, 2010
W hat were they thinking? The over the next fcash-strapped Broward School Board turned down the potential for $34 million our years to improve teacher training, better track individual student achievement and help low-performing schools improve. By a 5-4 vote, the board decided Tuesday it would not join most other Florida school districts — including […]
January 18, 2010
Parents’ frustration with the district’s handling of their children’s special education needs boiled over several times during a meeting with the school board chairman and superintendent Wednesday morning. Many attendees said the families who strongly advocate for their children — even wage legal battles on their behalf — are too often labeled as "problem parents" […]
January 18, 2010
On Friday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other state officials signed California’s grand, ambitious, 550-page application for federal Race to the Top (RTTT) education funding. It came just a week after the governor submitted a budget plan for the coming year that’s so riddled with holes, misrepresentations and improbabilities that you’d never know they applied to […]
January 15, 2010
At the Pine Bush School District Board of Education meeting on January 12, School Superintendent Phil Steinberg, obviously unhappy, but also with an air of resignation, laid out the very difficult financial future of the district. After pulling a pretty hefty rabbit out of a very small hat last year, with the aid of federal […]
January 15, 2010
Newton Community School District is facing a declining enrollment but the district is not alone. According to figures released by the Iowa Department of Education, nearly two-thirds of Iowa’s 361 schools reported a decrease in certified enrollment. Across the state, the public school enrollment decline equaled 2,792 students or approximately 0.59 percent compared to last […]
January 15, 2010
While local school districts wouldn’t mind getting additional federal dollars, they aren’t exactly racing to be subjected to additional federal standards. Roughly two dozen educators gathered Thursday to talk about the Race to the Top federal grant program and other educational issues during a roundtable discussion hosted by U.S. Rep. Judy Biggert, a Hinsdale Republican. […]
January 15, 2010
The loss of local control over educational services was one reason Leechburg Area School District officials decided not to apply for federal school reform grants, said Superintendent Jim Budzilek. "This reform model almost seemed to be too much of a state and federal mandate," he said. Leechburg is one of five districts in the county […]