Black elementary school students are half as likely as their white peers to be assigned to gifted elementary programs in math and reading—even with comparably high test scores. But the racial gap in giftedness disappears when black students have a black teacher, according to a study. Black elementary school students are half as likely as […]
A wealth of choices. Accessible at home or at school. Both fiction and nonfiction options. Those were the qualifications for new ELA software for the 37,000 students of West Ada School District in western Idaho. "We had other instructional reading tools, but they were very expensive and did not provide content at the time" says […]
In their book, Transforming Ice Age Schools: A Practical Guide for School Leaders, Leighangela Brady and Lisbeth Johnson argue that, beyond superficial "fixes," little has changed in the underlying structure of education. The result: students unprepared for the complex challenges that await them after high school. We've all heard the saying, "The more things change, […]
All K12 schools in Washington are mandated by a new state law to teach Since Time Immemorial, a curriculum that focuses on the history and culture of the state's 29 federally recognized Native American tribes. About 130,000 Native Americans live in the state. "The goal is not only to address the needs of tribal youth, […]
In this objective look into a subject that has generated much debate, Ovid K. Wong and Chak Lau examine critical elements in preparing teachers and decision-makers for the tenure application process. Teacher Tenure: An Analysis of the Critical Elements Rowman&Littlefield In this objective look into a subject that has generated much debate, Ovid K. Wong […]
Old computers may not be trendy, but as school tech budgets shrink or stagnate, many administrators try to squeeze the most life out of their aging devices. Recycling and retrofitting, and hooking up to the cloud, allow districts to delay or even abandon established schedules for buying brand-new equipment. In 2015, 8.9 million laptops and […]
By all accounts, Marysville School District in Michigan is a high-success, high-performance district. While the average state graduation rate hovers at about 78 percent, Marysville graduates 95 percent of its students. It's a point of pride that students exit Marysville—a suburban community located 55 miles northeast of Detroit—prepared to meet the rigorous demands of higher […]
In the name of saving money, K12 administrators are also discovering that reconfiguring grade levels offers unique education advantages. School leaders nationwide are exploring innovative group-level groupings and thinking beyond the typical K5 elementary school, grades 6 through 8 middle school and grades 9 through 12 high school model to figure out how to continue […]
The Duval County School Board reconceived six schools to focus on early learning, autism, arts, military leadership and advanced studies. Last summer, Superintendent Nikolai Vitti spearheaded the program and boundary changes to improve low performance and offer stronger educational options to attract students back to traditional public schools. "Clearly, we have communities and parents that […]
The push to establish national academic benchmarks may have been dealt yet another blow by the Every Student Succeeds Act. Nearly two dozen states began revising the Common Core after the new law reaffirmed their authority to create their own standards. As of this writing, three states had reversed their adoption of the Common Core: […]