When it comes to the nation's large and urban school systems, only about a third are pursuing "new or imaginative" strategies to transform teaching into a more appealing profession, says a new analysis
Outcomes are improving for students in the long-underresourced Pottstown School District but funding uncertainty is clouding the prospects for continued success, Superintendent Stephen Rodriguez says.
Student mental health and teacher shortages are major roadblocks to academic recovery that schools cannot overcome without support—and long-term funding—from the nation's leaders, a budding coalition of Black and Latino superintendents told District Administration as they marched toward the U.S. Capitol.
Thanks to an anonymous donor, Holland Public Schools will offer 10 teachers $25,000 each year to help purchase a house within the district as long as they commit to teaching there for five years.
District Administration senior writer Matt Zalaznick was there as the superintendents, who represented 21 states, beseeched leaders to provide more financial and political support for mental health services, teacher preparation and retention, and English learners.
"Our focus turned from educational leader to a position of protector of public education," says Dave Wick, superintendent of Columbia Falls School District 6 and president of the Montana Association of School Superintendents.
Hundreds of school leaders are in the nation's capital today advocating for increased federal funding to expand mental health counseling and fill staff vacancies.
In 2019, the superintendency was changed for good. The profession is now a multifaceted and complex job that no one could have anticipated, and it requires intense training and preparation, one expert says.
The most innovative and most equitable districts on gender disparity are creating policies offer adequate childcare, allow for more flexible work hours, foster a family-first culture and explicitly provide mentoring and networking.
Big bucks could be headed toward academic acceleration, special education and Title I schools in the 2024 education budget unveiled by President Joe Biden this week—but its outlook is dim in the face of a Republican-controlled House of Representatives and a sharply divided Congress.
