January 18, 2010
The New Jersey School Boards Association has canceled its annual three-day conference in Atlantic City in October, which is an estimated $7 million hit to the city’s struggling economy, acco rding to Jeffrey Vasser, president of the Atlantic City Convention and Visitors Authority. School Boards Association spokesman Frank Belluscio confirmed Friday that the group has […]
January 18, 2010
I’m a finance guy, so I’ll get right to the point. I want to talk about a dirty word, or at least a word that conjures up negative images in many people’s minds. "Administration." There, I said it. That one word which evokes a vision of bureaucrats squandering hard earned taxpayer money as we speak. […]
January 18, 2010
On Tuesday, New Jersey will submit its application for the U.S. Department of Education’s "Race to the Top" competition. The prize is a huge infusion of federal dollars to fund innovative, transformational changes in how we prepare children for success in college and the workplace. The competition among states for this money will be very […]
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 15, 2010
Gov. Steve Beshear used more federal stimulus funds, siphoned money from small state accounts and cut spending 3 percent for lower priority state agencies to fill a $108 million budget gap in the current state budget. Beshear’s plan, announced Monday, at a news conference in the Capitol, won’t cut public school funding or lay off […]
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. […]