February 17, 2011
Two years ago today, Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and life as we know it changed forever. Okay, so maybe the result hasn’t bee n that dramatic… But some $100 billion later, the effect of stimulus-era education reforms—from an emphasis on teacher merit pay to turning around low-performing schools—hangs in the balance. […]
February 17, 2011
South Carolina charter school advocates have won a partial victory with legislators giving initial approval to a one-time cash infusion. A House budget-writing panel voted Wednesday to send more money in 2011-12 to charter schools organized under the statewide charter district. Online schools would get an extra $2,500 per student, while "brick and mortar" schools […]
February 17, 2011
A Senate committee has approved a key piece of Gov. Susana Martinez’s proposed educational reforms. The measure will assign the grades of A to F for public schools based on student achievement. The Senate Education Committee endorsed the bill on Wednesday on a 7-1 vote, sending it to another committee for consideration. Supporters say the […]
February 16, 2011
Some parents of disabled children in the Bloom-Carroll school district gave state education officials an earful at a public hearing last night, saying that district officials are not providing the proper special education that federal law requires. But other parents of special-needs children said the Fairfield County district is doing a good job. The Ohio […]
February 16, 2011
Carrie Koenig of Algonquin came to Monday night’s Community Unit School District 300 Board of Education meeting holding her breath, she said. Next to “special education,” the dollar amount had been blank in the first version of the administrative proposal for 2011-12 budget reductions that the school board is considering. In the version brought before […]
February 16, 2011
Thousands of employees would lose jobs, children would face larger classes, and magnet and preschool programs would experience sharp reductions under a worst-case $5-billion budget plan approved Tuesday by the Los Angeles Board of Education. But 45 new and low-performing schools could be spared entirely from teacher layoffs as a result of a recent legal […]
February 16, 2011
Finding ways to help adolescent students do better in school is a dilemma that has dogged educators for decades. Now, city school officials hope a plan to expand elementary schools to the eighth grade will help those students succeed at an age when some research suggests they are most vulnerable to failure. "A lot of […]
February 16, 2011
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, convening a two-day labor-management conference here on Tuesday, argued that teachers’ unions can help solve many of the challenges facing public schools. But as the conference opened , that view was under challenge in a number of state capitals. Republicans in several states have proposed legislation in recent weeks that […]
February 16, 2011
In front of a friendly audience in his native Morris County, Gov. Chris Christie took his fight to the state Supreme Court today. At a town hall meeting in a Police Athletic League gymnasium, Christie blamed the court for tying his hands on changing the school funding formula and reforming the state’s affordable housing system. […]
February 15, 2011
President Obama proposed a 2012 Department of Education budget on Monday that would, if approved, significantly increase federal spending for public schools, and maintain the maximum Pell grant — the cornerstone financial-aid program — at $5,550 per college student. Whether it will be possible to keep that Pell maximum remains uncertain, however, given that House […]