Pre-K programs for students with special needs vary widely in quality and scope. Some states and districts have long included students with special needs in pre-K classes alongside their more typically developing peers.
K12 educators increasingly embrace life skills curricula that promote social-emotional learning, mindfulness, problem-solving and other soft skills. Many districts no longer view such programs as "nice to have" but as essential components of overall instruction. The growing emphasis on life skills is making an impact. In schools where students demonstrated significantly improved social and emotional […]
Four years of development in Michigan has produced an arts platform where educators can share a curriculum and better methods for assessing student work. The instructional materials align with state and national standards, including the Every Student Succeeds Act, which emphasizes the arts as part of a "well-rounded education." Arts can teach students valuable soft […]
Social emotional learning helps students learn the coping skills critical for dealing with themselves, other people and their schoolwork. While SEL has become more mainstream over the past few years, you have been researching it since the mid-1970s. What piqued your early interest? In those years, we did a lot of work with at-risk populations. […]
Young refugees who have fled foreign war zones, religious violence and dire poverty represent some of the country's most "at-risk" students. In one New York district, for instance, refugee students who recently heard alarms during a fire drill worried the school was being bombed. About 61,000 refugees age 17 and younger entered the U.S. between […]
Within a few months of becoming superintendent of New Haven Public Schools a couple of years ago, Garth Harries had already attended too many teenagers' funerals. After Harries left these grim ceremonies—and in other occasions when students were shot but survived—his office went back over the victims' academic records for signs of trouble. "There were […]
A cadre of students trained in IT support are providing teachers with Johnny-on-the-spot resources and bolstering the responsiveness of districts' lean tech staffs for routine requests. The eager students provide districts with an inexpensive and much-needed tech resource; and the students gain experience, new skills, and confidence, districts say. On any given day, teachers are […]
