Florida School Boards Association
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio seems to have taken a page from Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average. Last month, state officials releasing an early batch of test scores declared that two-thirds of students at most grade levels were proficient on reading and math tests given last spring under the new Common Core…
Last week the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development released the results of a global study looking at the effect of technology on 15-year-olds test scores. The group oversees one of the most important international exams, so their research matters. And the research matters even more to Florida because state law requires schools spend half of their…
As one of Stephen Colbert’s first Late Show guests this week, presidential candidate Jeb Bush invoked the now-familiar story of how he reformed education in Florida. “The government plays a useful role, but it ought to be reformed,” Bush told his host. “That’s why when I was governor of the state of Florida, I turned…
The charter school movement has been expelled from Washington state’s public education system, with a Supreme Court ruling late Friday that the privately run schools are not public schools under the state’s constitution. Meanwhile, the quick fix for that sizable hurdle sought by the state’s charter school proponents—a special legislative session—does not appear likely because Washington’s public education…
Recent headlines about the discovery of head lice that are resistant to over-the-counter treatments have stirred up fears in many parents that the tedious task of ridding their children’s hair of the tiny pests may now be even more difficult. Perhaps intensifying their concerns, many news media outlets have dubbed the new strain of insects…
The Newsweek High School Rankings—recognizing the achievements of the best public high schools in the United States for college readiness—have been published for more than a decade. Since 2014, Newsweek has published two separate lists in an effort to address the complexities of assessing the “best” high schools when students’ socioeconomic backgrounds are taken into…
No one likes to see the end of summer, but the sun will soon set on vacations and journeys, and you know what that means — back to school. Fortunately, there are apps to ease a student back into the classroom. Here are my top 5 free recommendations: #1 – Quizlet (free, iPhone and Android)…
This past spring, 5 million students from third grade through high school took new, end-of-year tests in math and English that were developed by a consortium of states known as PARCC. It’s a big deal because these tests are aligned to the Common Core learning standards, and they’re considered harder than many of the tests…
Teachers can’t hotfoot it out of Kansas fast enough, creating a substantial shortage expected only to get much worse. Why? Well, there’s the low pay. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the average teaching salary in 2012-2013 (the latest year for which data were available, in constant 2012-2013 dollars), was $47,464, lower than the pay…
A weak economy appears to have at least one upside: Schools are able to hire more effective teachers, according to new research. Teachers hired during recessions were significantly more effective, as judged by their students’ performance on standardized tests, than teachers hired during better economic times, according to working paper published this week by the…