More Minnesota schools using expulsion as last option for troubled kids

Gone are the days when students who smuggled pot to school in backpacks or duked it out in lunchroom brawls were routinely expelled. Read more>>

A new state Assembly bill, AB 2536, would give schools the right to expel or suspend students for what it calls sexting -- sending nude or sexually explicit photos and images electronically, “with the purpose or effect of humiliating or harassing a pupil.” They would be able to do that when students are at, or en route to and from, school or school-sanctioned events. Read more>>

Florida schools may soon have more out-of-county students, more autonomous principals and more teachers without an education background. But the state Legislature may recess without passing any new requirements on school recess, and it has already shot down proposals to allow guns on campuses. Read more>>

Alison DeNisco

Students living in states with an antibullying law that includes at least one U.S. Department of Education-recommended legislative component had lower reported bullying and cyberbullying rates compared to students living in states without such legal provisions, according to recent research. Read more>>

Fewer black and Hispanic students gained admission to the city’s specialized high schools Friday, even as thousands of teens received offers to attend their top high school choices. Read more>>

Students in the Boston Public Schools are planning to stage a walkout on Monday to protest budget cuts, officials said Friday. Read more>>

Chicago Public Schools CEO Forrest Claypool said Friday that the district will continue to pick up a major chunk of pension contributions for teachers until the final phase of contract negotiations is completed, easing the threat of an April 1 strike. Read more>>

Superintendent Antwan Wilson is facing a rebellion by teachers and some parents against his plan to allow families to use a single form to apply to any of the city’s 86 district-run schools or 44 charter campuses, all of which are competing for a shrinking number of students. Read more>>

It has become an article of faith among education reformers that throwing more money at public education doesn’t improve student performance. But a steady drumbeat of careful research studies is calling this into question. What if more money really does work? Read more>>

The conditions of Detroit Public Schools (DPS) have been declining for some time, and teachers are becoming increasingly fed up. Read more>>

To help teachers and parent leaders communicate with every parent in the classroom and school, ParentSquare launched language translation to over a hundred languages. Messages written in English will now be translated automatically and sent home in the language understood by parents, via email, text and app notifications. Read more>>

Working with the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and Mid-State Technical College, Skyward is offering students in Wisconsin K12 school districts an early start on discovering careers within the information technology sector and expanding computer science curriculum. Read more>>

Avaz, Inc. has partnered with LanguageCraft to create a new tool for children with language disorders. The FreeSpeech technology is an iOS app that allows children to see the deep structures of grammar in an interactive way. Read more>>