A third-grader studying the Spanish settlement of California found a virtual tour online and shared the trip with her classmates by slipping a smartphone into a Google Cardboard viewing device. Such limitless online resources represent a big, blended leap beyond the essays students in Coalinga-Huron USD in Central California used to write. Blended learning for […]
While auditing New Hanover County Schools in North Carolina, Nancy Braswell noticed assets coming into the district from unfamiliar sources. "Items were being received from Donors Choose and checks were being received through GoFundMe" says Braswell, internal auditor. When she investigated, Braswell found that teachers were turning to a variety of companies and nonprofits to […]
Big high school football stadiums in Texas have come under scrutiny from local fiscal watchdogs, but pushback is just part of the story about sports facility finance—where expenditures and potential revenue sources have grown more complex and potentially lucrative. Critics say palatial athletic facilities prioritize sports over the classroom and waste taxpayer money. But supporters […]
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 […]
DeRay Mckesson is the interim chief human capital officer for Baltimore City Public Schools in Maryland, managing personnel, staffing, benefits and other related issues. The civil rights activist and former Baltimore mayoral candidate returns to the human capital office, where for 2 1/2 years he oversaw key reforms as a strategist and special assistant. He […]
A middle school in Hampton Bays Public Schools in New York has bridged the needs of its students and the community. In fact, the community helped design Hampton Bays Middle School, which opened in 2008, on Long Island. The building can be used for town hall meetings and adult learning classes, and offers a community […]
More than 51 percent of young adults across the United States say that a high school money management class would have benefitted their lives, according to a study from the National Financial Educators Council. While 45 states include personal finance in state standards, only 17 states require high school students to take a personal finance […]
Many students at Oxnard Elementary School District in Southern California have a dual challenge in gaining reading proficiency. Not only do they struggle with developing literacy skills, but over 56 percent of Oxnard's 17,000 pre-k through 8 students are learning English as a second language. To help these students overcome their literacy deficiency, in 2014 […]
Within a few months of becoming superintendent of New Haven Public Schools a couple of years ago, Garth Harries had already attended too many teenagers' funerals. After Harries left these grim ceremonies—and in other occasions when students were shot but survived—his office went back over the victims' academic records for signs of trouble. "There were […]
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 […]
