Superintendent Tiffany Anderson, who lives more than 60 miles from her office, arrives at Topeka Public Schools every day at 5:30 a.m. and leaves at 7 p.m., so she can spend more time getting to know the district. This came after convincing the district to change its policy that superintendents must live in the area. […]
Colleges blame high schools. High schools blame middle schools. Middle schools blame elementaries—and everyone tends to blame funding, poverty, bad parenting and other factors for low student achievement. A new movement that promises closer cooperation between higher ed and K12 aims to end this legacy of passing the buck. Educators from New York City to […]
BARTLETT, TENNESSEE—Only a handful of superintendents have launched a brand-new district. Even fewer have done it only months after being involved in a large-scale merger. Meet David Stephens, superintendent of Bartlett City Schools in a middle-class Memphis suburb. Stephens—whose father, grandfather, aunt and uncle all taught in Tennessee school districts—was chosen in 2013 to lead […]
The challenge of finding curriculum materials in languages other than English is especially complex for districts embracing a growing trend: dual-language immersion programs, in which native English speakers join English language learners in studying academic subjects in two languages. Nine years ago, Utah launched an ambitious effort to enroll thousands of students in dual-language immersion, […]
A new series of toolkits designed to help administrators meet next-generation high school standards has been released by the Alliance for Excellent Education, a national education policy and advocacy organization for underserved secondary school students. The toolkits (available for free download as PowerPoint documents) de-mystify the Every Student Succeeds Act, explaining many of the law's […]
Alaska recently graduated its first class of Russian dual-language students who began the program in kindergarten. That's just one example of the growing diversity of language-immersion programs in U.S. schools. While Spanish remains a constant, there is an increased demand nationally for dual-language programs in Portuguese, German, French and Mandarin, says Pete Swanson, president of […]
Why settle for one superintendent when you can have three? It's happening at District 49 in the Pikes Peak region of Colorado. Peter Hilts is chief education officer. He considers himself the visionary. Jack Bay is the "practical" chief operations officer who handles transportation, construction activities and IT. And as chief business officer, Brett Ridgway […]
Tucked among the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia is a high-poverty school district that looks a lot like the United Nations. It was something Harrisonburg City Public Schools Superintendent Scott Kizner was most proud of. "These refugee students feel like a part of the social fabric," Kizner says. "And every day all students at this district […]
Guilford County Schools in North Carolina raised $35 million last year to help fund every high school student's college education in full. The effort is part of the district's recent partnership with Say Yes to Education, a nonprofit that also works communitywide in Syracuse and Buffalo, New York, to provide scholarships and social services. Say […]
The new year may send familiar education challenges in new directions as administrators grapple with an uncertain testing landscape, staff shortages, the increased push for equity and constantly increasing charter competition. Experts expect education budgets in most states to remain flat in 2016. The pending reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act should uphold […]
