Public outcry over new standards-aligned tests led some states to cut funding, changing the exam landscape for 2015-16. In 2012, nearly every state was part of either PARCC or the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. As of this July, just 18 states remained in Smarter Balanced, and 10 (plus Washington, D.C.) had stuck with PARCC. Twenty-two […]

When Elizabeth Rose's teaching job was cut, she was presented with two options: leave the profession or substitute in a different Manhattan public high school each week. Rather than give in, Rose—who's also a musician, writer and actor—took on the substitute challenge. It was "a temptation no storyteller could resist," she says. When Elizabeth Rose's […]

There's good news for district leaders in the ongoing battle to meet the ever-increasing demand for bandwidth. One-gigabit networks are coming to more areas, the cost of service per megabit is decreasing, and funding through E-rate and other sources is increasing. Many district networks are straining under the deluge of digital learning resources. Web-based learning […]

On the walls of Tim Cline’s office hang samples of outstanding work completed by students in Interior Distance Education of Alaska (IDEA), the public school program he runs. Visiting parents are often impressed. Nothing unusual about that??except that IDEA’s students are homeschoolers who may never enter a public school classroom, and those impressed parents are […]