District Administration welcomed education policy expert Robert Balfanz for this web seminar about what the last 10 years of research has found when it comes to improving the most challenged and lowest-performing schools, as well as the implications of the Trump administration and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos on these efforts. Balfanz is research professor […]
In the wake of a divisive presidential election, hundreds of students from about a dozen high schools in Oakland, California, cut class last November to voice their discontent with President-elect Donald Trump. Rather than demand students return to school, faculty at Oakland USD supported the peaceful demonstration, where students could express their feelings, says David […]
As a Title 1 school, LAUSD's 186th Street School jumped at a chance to expose primarily low-income students to the possibilities of a medical science career. Physicians from Harbor-UCLA Medical Center's pediatrics department approached the school in 2015 asking if they want to use the center's science enrichment curriculum for fifth-graders in the gifted and […]
Why is there such an emphasis on personalized learning today for K12? Educators want to work with students the way they learn best, and we know that one-on-one or small-group instruction is effective. But for the sake of efficiency, schools often employ the "factory" model to teach large numbers of students in a classroom, assuming […]
Schools that offer more comprehensive instruction, increase school safety and student health, and better integrate educational technology may be eligible for new federal funds. A new grant program from the U.S. Department of Education will reward schools that improve access to music, social studies, environmental education and computer science, as well as support college and […]
In a perfect world, every child would have access to food, shelter and clothing. They would have loving, attentive parents. They would arrive at school eager, focused and ready to learn. Unfortunately, our pre-K through 5 school, like a growing number of U.S. public schools, does not reside in that world. At Highland View Elementary […]
When the next president takes office in January, he or she will preside over major shifts in the K12 education landscape—from implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act and Common Core, to the rollout of nationwide STEM initiatives, to the simmering battles over charters, school choice and teachers unions. When the next president takes office […]
Equity in K12 education doesn't mean the same thing as equality. In fact, achieving true equity often requires providing lower-income schools and students with more resources than are given others in the same district, says Joel Boyd, superintendent of Santa Fe Public Schools in New Mexico. "Fair student funding means some students are funded at […]
When Heidi Sipe, superintendent of Oregon's poor, rural Umatilla School District, asks her elementary-age students what they want to be when they grow up, she no longer gets the answers she once did: football player, firefighter, nurse. Now the students tell her they want to be engineers. Sipe attributes the change to the district's four-year-old […]
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 […]
