Former New York City Schools Chancellor Dennis M. Walcott was appointed by the state in August to lead a team studying the troubled East Ramapo Central School District in New York. Last fall, a state investigation found that the district’s school board members diverted money from public schools to children attending private religious institutions, leaving […]
Back-to-school has become a thing of the past in an increasing number of districts that keep class in session all year. The number of public, year-round schools, also called "balanced-calendar" schools, increased by 26 percent from 2007 to 2012, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. More than 3,700 schools operate year-round nationwide, accounting […]
Sandy Grove Middle School, part of Hoke County Schools in North Carolina, is the first energy-positive school in the nation to be financed by its own expected energy savings. The 74,000-square-foot school opened to students in fall 2013, and was designed as a net-zero facility that produces more energy than it consumes. It will also […]
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 […]
How can districts use the Common Core-aligned assessments to improve education if the results won't be available until later this fall, after the current school year is well underway? That's the question district administrators have been asking themselves for months, ever since millions of American students took the first round of Common Core-aligned assessments earlier […]
Many classrooms will remain without a permanent teacher this fall, as the teacher shortage becomes more severe in some states. Major enrollment drops in teacher prep programs signal worsening conditions in the coming years. Many classrooms will remain without a permanent teacher this fall, as the teacher shortage becomes more severe in some states. Major […]
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 […]
Forrest Claypool, a top aide to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, was named CEO of Chicago Public Schools in July. Previous CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennet resigned in June amid a federal investigation into a $20.5 million no-bid contract awarded by the school board to her previous employer. The district is grappling with a budget shortfall of about […]
Schools are the center of the community and when schools are transformed in positive ways, communities are transformed. The continued rise of poverty is not surprising when policies and practices that could contribute to eliminating poverty are not addressed well. The foundation of systematic oppression is rooted in practices that contribute to a system becoming […]
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 […]
