Progress of high achieving students is important too

The Houston ISD will pay $300,000 to an organization best known for crafting standardized tests to conduct an audit of the school district's troubled special education department. A previous investigation revealed that Texas systematically denied special education services to thousands of eligible students, including the Houston district. Read more>>

The NCAA now will allow official visits to take place from April to June for high school football recruits. They also have set restrictions on high school coaches for potential employment with college programs. High school prospects also cannot visit a school at the same time as his/her participation in that school’s camp or clinic. Read more>>

An Indianapolis Public Schools task force has recommended closing three of the district's seven high schools because of declining enrollments, due primarily to a loss of population in the city's urban core and competition from other schools. The closures could save about $4 million a year. Read more>>

Steven Wyman-Blackburn

The assessment that prospective principals must take to obtain an administrative license in 18 states may be a barrier to non-whites and urban educators, says a 2017 study. Read more>>

The state court dismissed a lawsuit that challenges the inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity in the Fairfax County School District’s nondiscrimination policy. The plaintiffs argued the so-called Dillon Rule prohibits school boards from adding LGBT-specific provisions to their nondiscrimination policies unless the Virginia General Assembly were to pass a law allowing them to do so. Read more>>

The tug of war between school choice advocates and defenders of traditional public schools played out in Arkansas’s General Assembly. Although school choice advocates won most battles this session, they were unable to pass a bill that would have established savings accounts to be used at parents' discretion to pay for private school and education costs. Read more>>

Nevada is addressing the problems of its long-struggling public schools with a new education plan to lift them up. The state is setting its sights on substantial improvements in student achievement over the next five years, particularly in graduation rates, English proficiency among non-native language learners and math. Read more>>

Like so many other facets of America’s poverty problem, the issue of school funding can only be solved if people care to solve it. It is not a sexy issue. No politician gets huge applause for lines about reallocating property taxes; but the reality is, if America is to ever truly be a place in which anyone can succeed, we have to better fund our failing schools. Read more>>

Michigan's proposed framework for a new accountability system does little to give its poor and minority high achieving students the attention they desperately require and deserve. One way to improve is to give schools additional credit for getting more students to an advanced level on state assessments, instead of exclusively rewarding schools helping get kids to “proficiency.” Read more>>

​While many states provide adult trials for younger defendants accused of heinous crimes, with only North Carolina and New York automatically treat everyone 16 or older as an adult. It makes little sense to automatically put them into adult court, including law-enforcement officers and prosecutors. A new N.C. bill would allow the system to treat youthful offenders as individuals. Read more>>

The new Collaborative Management Suite gives IT department employees a tool to remotely manage the wePresent systems on their network. The platform is best used for large networks, such as schools, to allow for mass monitoring. Read more>>

With 34 AP classes to choose from, students can now gain access to updated, in-depth prep for every single one of the exams. The comprehensive topic review includes hundreds of drills, multiple practice tests, diagnostic exams, videos, projected scores and detailed progress monitoring. Read more>>

Nuro Retention signed a broader partnership with Canvas by Instructure, an open online learning management system, to receive integrated technical solutions and complementary services within Canvas. The partnership will allow Instructure clients to adopt more easily Nuro’s SaaS products and reduce the burden on institutional resources. Read more>>