President Barack Obama's announcement last week of a wide-ranging anti-violence plan in response to the Newtown, Connecticut, school shootings comes as many districts are adopting new and sometimes dramatic measures--including arming teachers and volunteers--intended to prevent similar tragedies in their own schools. School safety experts warn…

At a time when policymakers are demanding budget cuts and more innovative approaches to schooling, pressure is building for loosening up constraints on class sizes. After dropping for decades, average class sizes in American schools may be growing again as schools cope with budget shortfalls. Although some educators see the rising numbers as a…

As debate continues around the development and adoption of common standards in English and mathematics, several states are independently wrestling with rewrites of standards in a content area largely absent from that national discussion--social studies--and encountering their own shares of controversy. Flash points in the social studies debates…

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…