Rethinking the role of high school By Anthony Kim, Founder & CEO, Education Elements From Sir Ken Robinson, films like “Most Likely to Succeed” and campaigns like XQ Super Schools Project, we are constantly reminded of the need to change our schools from the model we developed during the industrial era. The leaders of this […]
As a cost-saving measure, consolidation can help save a struggling district. Consolidation can take two forms. In the first, a district grappling with declining revenues has no choice but to reduce costs or face insolvency. Declining revenues can come from a declining tax base, downturn in the economy or the loss of a major employer […]
One month before the beginning of the 2017-18 school year, Turlock USD was still short five speech-language pathologists. The salary offered by the Central California district was high by area standards, but even so, the positions remained unfilled. In fact, no one had even applied. Alice Solis, Turlock’s director of special education, struggled to hire […]
Educators in a school district that conducts well-designed formative assessments should be able to accurately predict how students will perform on midterms, finals and high-stakes exams. A growing number of experts and administrators insist that if a district excels at formative assessment, its students shouldn’t have to sit through so many high-stakes tests. “We don’t […]
KANSAS CITY, Kansas—Superintendent Cynthia Lane learned the cello a few years ago, but not to fulfill some lifelong dream of soloing with the local symphony. The leader of Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools, who played clarinet in high school, now performs alongside fourth- and fifth-graders in their annual spring strings concert. Fifth-graders also spend months […]
Throughout the U.S., the movement to privatize education is advancing, in state legislatures and local school districts, and it is a relentless force. Education reformers are on a mission to replace under-performing public schools with charter schools and other private alternatives. Most of the public schools reformers are targeting are located in urban and rural […]
After the Great Recession, the Metropolitan School District of Lawrence Township in Indianapolis knew it had to prepare students for a new world of work skills and knowledge. Leaders decided that the district’s McKenzie Career Center had to morph from a traditional vocational training facility into a school that would equip students with future-ready skills, […]
Five years ago, Boston Public School’s John Eliot School in the city’s North End neighborhood was declared an innovation school. What that meant for principal Traci Walker-Griffith was more autonomy in choosing the elementary school’s curriculum for her 570 students. One of the first curricular changes she made was bringing in Everyday Mathematics. School population […]
The 2015 passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) reverses the trend of federal authority over K12 education. The new law returns state and local authority to levels that have not been seen in decades. One of biggest changes is that ESSA increases fund transferability for key federal programs. Under NCLB, state and local […]
In the name of saving money, K12 administrators are also discovering that reconfiguring grade levels offers unique education advantages. School leaders nationwide are exploring innovative group-level groupings and thinking beyond the typical K5 elementary school, grades 6 through 8 middle school and grades 9 through 12 high school model to figure out how to continue […]
