December 27, 2010

The widespread adoption of common-core academic standards is expected to accelerate a growing movement among educators to link individualized education programs for students with disabilities directly to grade-level standards. “Standards-based” IEPs allow individualized instruction in pursuit of a common goal: helping students with disabilities move toward meeting the same grade-level academic standards that general education […]

December 27, 2010

Vouchers for all students. Merit pay for teachers, but no tenure for new hires. Those are just a few of the wide-ranging recommendations for reforming Florida’s education system released this week by an 18-member panel advising Gov.-elect Rick Scott on his transition to becoming the state’s chief executive officer on Jan. 4. Some recommendations like […]

December 27, 2010

The financ ially strapped Detroit Public Schools is launching an effort to find alternative funding for programs to benefit students and staff. Three new entities — the DPS Foundation, DPS Alumni Association and DPS Volunteer Business Corps — will aim to identify private donors and nonprofit funding to help pay for costs such as classroom […]

December 23, 2010

Jill Gebeke made it a habit to reward herself with a small piece of chocolate after lunch every day. It’s hard work being a school principal, after all. But the chocolate rewards ended last month when some first- and second-graders caught her. "I thought you said this was a sweet-free zone," they reminded her. Gebeke, […]

December 23, 2010

Governor-elect Sam Brownback, working in his transitional office in Topeka, stated that he does not intend to replace $200 million in federal stimulus dollars that are set to expire.  "I don’t see how we can do a lot of augmentation really anywhere", Brownback said, referencing K-12 finance.  School districts were cautioned earlier this year that […]

December 23, 2010

Osceola Mills Elementary School librarian Kylie Minarchick is taking part in a new approach to teaching the arts. During a recent lesson, she spent the first four minutes and 30 seconds leading fourth-grade students as they recited four poems — as a group and as individuals. And then during a version of “Jack Be Nimble,” […]

December 23, 2010

As federal pressure intensifies to ensure students graduate ready for college and careers, researchers are beginning to go beyond identifying the subject-matter classes students need to succeed after high school and home in on the cognitive and noncognitive skills that also contribute to success. College and career readiness has become a hot political topic for […]

December 23, 2010

A study of Washington state teachers has found that deciding layoffs based solely on which teachers have the least seniority has a significant impact on students’ ability to learn, adding to a growing chorus calling for schools to take a hard look at union contracts dictating who gets to keep their jobs. The study comes […]

December 23, 2010

The West Virginia Board of Education plans to ask lawmakers for $271 million to help schools statewide move from traditional textbooks to online content. The school board wants to provide more than 300,000 laptops or other mobile devices to every student and teacher in the state. Board members also want to ensure that schools have […]

December 22, 2010

Sitting in the library during a break, two veteran teachers at Edwin Markham Middle School rattled off the names of principals who had been sent to fix the chronically low-performing school in Watts. There was Kimbell, Miller, Norris and Borges. Then came Mir-Rivera, Miyahara, Stroud, Sullivan. This year, Hernandez arrived — the ninth in 20 […]