American history could be in trouble. Decades of reliance on contentious textbooks and rote memorization have driven students away from the subject, despite its influence on contemporary issues. American history could be in trouble. Decades of reliance on contentious textbooks and rote memorization have driven students away from the subject, despite its influence on contemporary issues. […]
Today's climate of budget cuts and shortfalls has increased the importance of risk management in school districts. Insurance premiums can wipe out extensive efforts to reduce costs. In the past, school safety has primarily focused on disaster preparation and security issues, but it has come to mean much more. School safety is a holistic approach […]
From testing problem-solving skills in the survivalist block-building adventure Minecraft to reinforcing science concepts in SimCityEDU, educators are integrating games in the classroom at an increasingly rapid rate. Game-Based Learning occurs when students play a game with defined learning outcomes. In this special section, District Administration analyzes exactly what qualifies as Game-Based Learning, and identifies […]
In their book, Transforming Ice Age Schools: A Practical Guide for School Leaders, Leighangela Brady and Lisbeth Johnson argue that, beyond superficial "fixes," little has changed in the underlying structure of education. The result: students unprepared for the complex challenges that await them after high school. We've all heard the saying, "The more things change, […]
By all accounts, Marysville School District in Michigan is a high-success, high-performance district. While the average state graduation rate hovers at about 78 percent, Marysville graduates 95 percent of its students. It's a point of pride that students exit Marysville—a suburban community located 55 miles northeast of Detroit—prepared to meet the rigorous demands of higher […]
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 […]
The push to establish national academic benchmarks may have been dealt yet another blow by the Every Student Succeeds Act. Nearly two dozen states began revising the Common Core after the new law reaffirmed their authority to create their own standards. As of this writing, three states had reversed their adoption of the Common Core: […]
At Banneker High School in College Park, Georgia, dedicating a wing of six classrooms, an office and a conference room to just 139 ninth graders and their six teachers is an exercise in innovation. The wing is the foundation of a Junior Achievement (JA) pilot program called JA Magnet Business Academy, JA-MBA. Junior Achievement is […]
Leadership is never more critical than when creating and sustaining a data-centric learning culture, as Lane Mills advises in a white paper on how districts can access and integrate data to make informed, proactive decisions. A smart "what-why-how" framework can illuminate the mission of a new culture: What is a data-driven culture? Why is there […]
Leaders in Johnston County Schools in central North Carolina knew they needed to find more effective ways to help struggling students, close the achievement gap and meet their core instructional priorities. So they carefully planned a pilot program to choose the best adaptive learning system for the district's 25,000 K8 students and their educators. "We […]
