Dozens of schools are slated for aggressive interventions over the next three years under a new, multistate effort that aims to clear hurdles that have hindered previous attempts to improve underperforming schools. Education officials in Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, and New York have agreed to partner with Mass Insight…

When 16 finalists come to Washington next week to make their final pitches in the $4 billion Race to the Top competition, most can expect to go home empty-handed. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, in announcing the finalists last week, said that no more than $2 billion will be divided among "very few winners" when the awards are…

Winners of the Investing in Innovation (i3) competition scrambled to make a deadline to find private-sector matches for their multimillion-dollar federal awards, meeting the challenge through a mix of cash grants and donations of pricey equipment and services, and by rechanneling previous grants to new purposes. The 49 organizations selected to…

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is clear: States are on the hook for advancing education improvement goals spelled out in the law as a condition for receiving up to $100 billion in economic-stimulus aid to education. But school districts are the ones that must decide how to spend most of that aid--including hefty, one-time increases for…

States jockey for position as the U.S. Education Department readies billions of dollars in "Race to the Top" awards--the stimulus program's grand prize. Even before they've finished spending their first block of federal stimulus aid, states are getting a head start in a national "race to the top" for better public education,…

As 48 states charge ahead with plans to adopt common academic standards, the U.S. Department of Education will enlist experts and the public to help design a $350 million competition for the next step: the development of common tests. In coming weeks, top Education Department officials will travel to Atlanta, Boston, and Denver for a series of…

If the competition for a slice of $4 billion in federal Race to the Top Fund money were a school class, Colorado would be one of the kids sitting up front, furiously taking notes, and leaping up to answer every one of the teacher's questions. Officials here began plotting their strategy for receiving one of the coveted grants nearly as soon as the…

Leaders in a handful of school districts are pondering the idea of "front-loading" teacher compensation by paying novices more than they would typically earn under traditional salary schedules. Boosting new teachers' salaries, officials in Denver, the District of Columbia, and New York City contend, would increase the applicant pool and…

"Response to intervention" (RTI) as a model for boosting student achievement has taken off like wildfire. When it comes to research on how best to implement the process for students in middle and high school, though, the flame abruptly fizzles out. There's little RTI research that is specific to secondary schools, although it has been…

A decade after Eric D. Harris and Dylan B. Klebold fatally gunned down 13 people and wounded 23 others at Columbine High School, researchers are still sifting for answers to questions raised by the elaborate and notorious attack. Books and studies being published to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the April 20, 1999, massacre at the…

As support and professional-development opportunities for teachers begin to move from conference rooms to chat rooms, a burgeoning number of states and districts are drawing on features from course-management software and popular social-networking sites to establish online networks connecting teachers to peers who may live dozens or even hundreds…

Denver's performance-pay system for teachers has long been hailed as a model, in good part because it was jointly conceived and implemented by the school district and the local teachers' union. However, that collaborative spirit is now in jeopardy, with union and district leaders engaged in a protracted battle over proposed changes to the system.…

Launched last year, the SciTech Summer Camp is a joint project being led by the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) and the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Corp. (HENAAC). SciTech was created to get more Hispanic students into the so-called STEM fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. SciTech…

Education issues are poised to break through the din of presidential politics and economic anxiety in more than a dozen states next month, as voters confront ballot questions and constitutional amendments involving K-12 policy and school finance. High on the list are gambling referendums in six states--Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, Maryland,…

This article discusses how a growing network of Christian alternative schools--some nearly as vulnerable as the children they serve--is bent on getting troubled students back on track. Denver Street School expects a lot of its teachers, but does not pay them much, as it tries to turn around the lives of troubled students seeking a second, or even…