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 […]
Illinois has revamped state education funding to provide extra support to economically challenged K12 districts. Evidence-based funding, which goes into effect in 2018, considers each district’s needs and local funding resources when allocating state aid, with extra emphasis placed on high-poverty districts. Previously, nearly two-thirds of funding for each district—compared to a national average of […]
Requiring high schools to offer at least one AP course would help increase rural student access to rigorous pre-college work, according to a recent report. Although the AP participation rate in rural communities has steadily increased over the past 15 years, it still lags behind participation in suburban and urban districts, according to the report, […]
When it comes to boosting the nutritional and academic value of school meals, Janet Poppendieck certainly offers food for thought. A nationally recognized scholar and activist whose work focuses on poverty, hunger and food assistance in the United States, Poppendieck is the author of Free for All: Fixing School Food in America (University of California […]
For centuries now, we have come to believe that there is only one way for students to learn—come to school, sit at a desk, be taught by a teacher, and be tested. We’ve operated schools as if they were industrial factories, with teaching and learning practices that mimic assembly-line and batch-processing manufacturing. But we can […]
The American Museum of Natural History in New York Cityis leveraging its scientific resources to address K12 STEM education needs and to help develop future scientists. The museum’s mission is to “discover, interpret, and disseminate, through scientific research and education, knowledge about human cultures, the natural world and the universe.” It houses more than 33 […]
The U.S. public school system’s focus on struggling students leaves high-achieversÁ‘especially minorities, the economically disadvantaged and English-language learners Á‘without a challenging enough education, experts say. A lack of federal funding and patchwork policies across states often leave decisions on identifying and serving gifted students to district administrators. An estimated 3 million to 5 million academically […]
STEM and the City: A Report on STEM Education in the Great American Urban Public School System Information Age Publishing Author Clair T. Berube says the future of American STEM education is here and students would benefit from science education–if only they had the pertinent resources, support systems and psychological ownership. The country’s security, reputation […]
District leaders across the country are broadening and personalizing their approaches to attendance because the old way of sending truants and their families to court often fails to bring students back to school. “It’s important to get to the root of why students aren’t coming to school and be able to align the solution with […]
Funding cuts since the recession have drained the accounts of rural districts, which cannot rely on a resurgence in property tax revenues as heavily as urban school systems can. Some 9.7 million students are enrolled in rural districts, representing more than 20 percent of all U.S. public school students. And rural enrollment continues to rise, […]
