Districts devote nearly 80 percent of their budgets to personnel costs—leaving little wiggle room for administrators tasked with maintaining fiscal responsibility and boosting the quality of education in a time of nearly stagnant funding. John Hutchison, chief financial and operations officer at Olathe Public Schools in Kansas, began budgetary planning for the 2017-18 school year […]
The number of young people suffering from depression has increased almost 40 percent in the last three years. And, as the Hamilton Southeastern School District has found, mental health issues are hardly limited to teens. After the city of Fishers, an Indianapolis suburb of about 90,000, had 13 suicides in 2016, city officials launched a […]
Two years ago, when it became clear that their previous curricula for grades 6 through 8 did not align with required math standards, school leaders at Berwick Alternative K-8 School in Columbus, Ohio, began looking for a replacement. Berwick has 700 students, 60 percent of whom qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Keith Emrick, a […]
Across the country, thousands of school districts are building and publicizing summer meal programs, components of a 48-year-old, federally funded effort to keep low-income children from suffering the health and cognitive effects of summer hunger. Wichita Public Schools worked hard last summer to sell children on free food. Those attending the first week of the […]
In March, Netflix premiered 13 Reasons Why. The dramatic depictions and riveting subject matter quickly resulted in Netflix declaring the program its most-viewed show. Extremely troubling to psychology professionals across the nation is that 13 Reasons Why did not highlight the significant role mental illness plays in youth suicide. The show also fails to encourage […]
David Krulwich, principal of the Urban Assembly School for Applied Math and Science, says new teachers are too often left to fend for themselves, without the benefit of an artisan-apprentice relationship. Teaching is a craft and, as with any craft, neophytes should ideally work alongside the experts and artisans to soak up knowledge and experience along […]
Welcome to the second annual game-based learning special report in District Administration. Games continue to grow in popularity in K12 lessons ranging from science and math to English and social studies. They include alternate reality games that hook students’ imaginations and introduce social-emotional learning lessons to help students process feelings and thoughts. In a soon-to-be-released […]
In four Utica Community elementary schools in metro Detroit, students as young as 10 manipulate and pull apart the organs of the body, build roller coasters, and design and test 3D prototypes. The students wear 3D glasses on their heads; in their hands, they hold specialized styluses to maneuver digital objects projected in space in […]
In a classroom in New Hampshire, second-graders pull out iPads to film themselves discussing the characters of a book they are reading. Such video selfies increase students’ understanding of the story’s characters and how those characters resolve problems, says Amy Riley, who teaches at Stratham Memorial School in School Administrative Unit 16 in Exeter. “The […]
In his previous book, How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity and the Hidden Power of Character, journalist Paul Tough looked at how non-cognitive personal qualities like perseverance, self-control and conscientiousness play a critical role in children’s success. Now, in the follow-up to that book, Helping Children Succeed: What Works and Why (2016, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), Tough […]
