In urban areas across the country that give parents significant choice over where to send their kids to school, educational stratification and racial segregation is usually exacerbated. The result is that even when urban districts improve a little, they struggle to improve a lot because middle-class parents choose to send their children elsewhere. In recent […]
Q & A with Laura Spencer, Executive Director, Innovation and Design, Del Mar Union, San Diego, California How is your district driving innovation? We are in an unrelenting pursuit of the extraordinary school experience. With technology, you can never say, “OK, we’re done; we got there.” It’s constantly evolving. And the only way to get […]
When a robot created in a Kansas STEM class broke earlier this year, students didn’t have to buy a new part or wait for one to arrive in the mail. They simply walked to their HP Sprout Pro and used the 3D scanner to create a CAD file. From this, they used a 3D printer […]
Years ago, it was easy for districts to ignore what high average daily-attendance numbers can conceal: kids, sometimes lots of them, who miss weeks of school every year. The 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act has changed that calculus. For the first time, the law requires states to report chronic-absenteeism rates, and more than two-thirds of […]
YONKERS, N.Y.—Brian Schulder, the security and safety director at Yonkers Public Schools, considers himself an educator, first and foremost. He’s not some hardened, former city beat cop or detective—he’s spent a majority of his 20-plus years in this large urban district teaching and coaching. “I think being an educator lets me see things from a perspective […]
Their surroundings may be idyllic, but educators in one Cape Cod district found themselves confronting the struggles experienced by systems across the nation. Barnstable Public Schools (5,300 students) had over several years seen an uptick in at-risk students and children with complex needs. This, along with promising research from organizations such as the Collaborative for […]
Most schools have adopted emergency plans to respond to active shooter events. But in a new book, Amanda Klinger reports that these plans often don’t address more likely situations such as severe weather, chemical spills or health crises. Most schools have adopted emergency plans to respond to active shooter events. But Amanda Klinger says these plans often […]
In most of the developed world, high-stakes tests make or break a student’s future, sometimes before the age of 12. Many countries use national benchmarks to assess students, and construct tests to gauge understanding of the core curriculum. This was an original goal of the Common Core, but in the U.S., standardized tests have become […]
Our public education system was developed to serve all children, with taxpayers supporting the common good. Recent years have seen the growth of private, charter and voucher schools that divert funding from public schools. The legality of this practice is often challenged, yet legislators still find ways to funnel tax dollars into private schools. How […]
