Every weekday during the academic year, more than 50 million children across the United States enter public school buildings, says Lori Peek. Many of these buildings are so dilapidated and poorly designed that children's health and safety are at risk. In a New York Times editorial, Peek called these schools "deathtraps" a term intended to […]
Dozens of high schools across the nation are adding competitive video-gaming as it becomes one of the fastest-growing activities in both K12 and higher ed.
Statewide teacher strikes and walkouts in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona, Colorado and Kentucky left students out of school for days while superintendents scrambled to communicate with parents, to make up missed class time and to reschedule state tests. In West Virginia, all schools in the state's 55 districts were closed for nine days in February […]
Last fall, a national problem arrived in Superintendent Richard Scaletta's corner of rural northwestern Pennsylvania. Principals in the General McLane School District began reporting unprecedented levels of misbehavior: students in frequent and severe distress, sometimes kicking, biting or throwing things.
Pressure to raise achievement test scores has become the driving force behind what is taught and how. Worse, the results from these tests reveal only a fraction of the overall picture of whether students are learning—and whether teachers are effective in their jobs, says Daniel Koretz. As one of the nation's foremost experts on education […]
Crafting a strong and well-balanced social media policy requires considerable time and effort. The policy must be flexible enough to accommodate new tech trends—such as anonymous messaging apps and livestreaming—yet thorough and specific enough to address a multitude of potentially troublesome scenarios involving students, faculty and staff. When a few students at Eudora High School […]
For many youths growing up in the age of Kendrick Lamar, Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, the choice between taking orchestra, band or choir often misses the point. Building a school's music instruction around more recent artists and hits offers an alternative to a curriculum that's often based on classical, jazz and marching bands. "For […]
Allowing students to explore news articles that spark their curiosity can provide a bigger literacy boost than having them read nonfiction texts about random topics far removed from a youngster's interests. At Lancaster Middle School near Buffalo, New York, students read news articles to help write stories for a classroom magazine and to prepare for […]
Some parents of students in Magazine, Arkansas, can't afford the gas to drive their sick child 50 miles to the nearest doctor, says Brett Bunch, superintendent of the town's school district. Some parents of students in Magazine, Arkansas, can't afford the gas to drive their sick child 50 miles to the nearest doctor, says Brett […]
Leticia Guzman Ingram, teacher at Basalt High School in Colorado and named 2016 Colorado State Teacher of the Year, shares her point of view of the education system in Finland. We constantly hear how America's education system is broken and performs below the level of other countries. I recently returned from a trip to Finland where I […]