February 1, 2011
Wyoming school districts would have to get special permission to bypass state recommendations for class sizes under a bill approved by the state House. The bill passed by the House Monday updates the state’s $1.2 billion annual school funding model. The state Senate will consider House Bill 127 next. The Wyoming Tribune Eagle reports that […]
January 31, 2011
North Chevy Chase Elementary School, with a demanding curriculum, strong faculty and high student test scores, meets nobody’s definition of a failure. Nobody’s, that is, except the federal government’s. Last year, the Montgomery County school failed to make what the government calls "adequate yearly progress," even though 91 percent of its students passed the state […]
January 31, 2011
Student attendance rates are up, suspensions are down and math performance is improving in the nine struggling Houston ISD schools taking part in the district’s experimental reform program called Apollo 20. But the instruction in many classrooms remains too basic and boring, according to the first major progress report on the $29 million effort being […]
January 31, 2011
Montgomery County School Superintendent Jerry D. Weast said Friday that he is formulating a budget that could endanger more than 600 teaching and support positions as the system prepares to absorb more than 2,000 additional students th is fall. Weast said his budget plans would be "painful" as they raised class sizes and froze teachers’ […]
January 31, 2011
Ohio schools have been warned to brace for state funding cuts of 10 to 20 percent, but some key lawmakers say it’s unlikely that every district will face the same level of reductions. Considering that schools are second only to Medicaid as a percentage of the $50 billion two-year state budget, districts are eager to […]
January 31, 2011
You thought this school year was bad? With the federal stimulus dollars set to run out in June, next year has the potential to be a lot worse, Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said. “This will be a different school system,” he said. That is, unless state lawmakers fill the funding gap. Gov. Rick Scott hasn’t […]
January 31, 2011
State Sen. Angie Buhl, D-Sioux Falls, drew applause from a large audience at a legislative coffee Saturday when she said, "We should not accept as a foregone conclusion that education needs to take a 10 percent cut." That scene signaled a prevailing sentiment in the Holiday Inn ballroom among both the audience and lawmakers about […]
January 31, 2011
Trenton and other cash-strapped school districts are sitting on millions of dollars of federal money, but they have been reluctant to spend it ahead of possible announcements of more state aid cuts by Gov. Chris Christie. Trenton, for example, learned in September that it had been awarded $7.5 million under federal legislation targeted at saving […]
January 30, 2011
In a big room with a kitchen at J. Harold Brinley Middle School, a girl in a wheelchair pushed by her mother waits to be fed through a plastic tube. The feeding is tricky, but routine for Keri Mossel, 36, the school nurse. Mossel must insert the tube through a pea-sized hole in the abdomen […]
January 28, 2011
The Chicago Public Schools Board approved a measure yesterday offering free breakfasts at all of its schools, giving its 410,000 students an opportunity to have a healthy meal before the start of classes. This expansion of a federally funded program will give students in lower income neighborhoods the chance to actually have a meal before […]