The big clock in Dowan McNair-Lee's 8th grade classroom in the Stuart-Hobson Middle School is silent, but she can hear the minutes ticking away nonetheless. On this day, like any other, the clock is a constant reminder of how little time she has to prepare her students--for spring tests, and for high school and all that lies beyond it. The…

Brittany Rollins is hanging out a lot at the local animal shelter this year. Delving into the issue of pet euthanasia and writing about it will help her earn English/language arts credits toward graduation. The 17-year-old senior at Newfound Regional High School, in the rural central New Hampshire town of Bristol, is part of one of the most…

As states and districts begin the work of turning common academic standards into curriculum and instruction, educators searching for teaching resources are often finding that process frustrating and fruitless. Teachers and curriculum developers who are trying to craft road maps that reflect the Common Core State Standards can find themselves in a…

President Barack Obama's call for innovation to improve the nation's schools strikes a chord with many in policy circles, who are already discussing how the federal government can play a role not only in supporting the expansion of what works, but also in creating solutions to unsolved problems. But some experts are pointing out that significant…

The Memphis, Tennessee, school district is trying to steady itself in the wake of controversies that have rocked its operations side, potentially complicating its search for a new superintendent and renewing talk about putting the city's mayor in charge of the system. In the past few months, the district has been contending with official probes of…

Nine months after Hurricane Katrina crippled the New Orleans school district, two distinct systems of public schools are slowly emerging in the city. The highly unusual arrangement is fraught with questions, from the small--What should we call it?--to the large--Will it work? Where there once was a traditionally governed district, there now is a…

This article reports how the Miami-Dade County school district has undertaken an examination of its high school course offerings to make them more equitable after a newspaper report found a richer array of choices in wealthier neighborhoods than in poorer ones. In a unanimous vote last January 19, the nine-member school board directed…

In an attempt to respond to confusion about--or resistance to--the tutoring requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act, the U.S. Department of Education issued guidance outlining what it expects states and school districts to do in supplying the help to needy children. This nonregulatory guidance clarifies the roles of states and school…

Cleveland voters soundly rejected a levy intended to bolster the school district's finances, a move widely interpreted as a referendum on the performance of its leader, Barbara Byrd-Bennett. Two-thirds of the voters who turned out for the Aug. 2 special election cast their ballots against Issue 3, which would have raised more than $45 million to…

As schools scrambled to absorb hundreds of thousands of students displaced by Hurricane Katrina, experts urged administrators to consider and plan for a host of academic and emotional issues that could come along with them. Education researchers and experts in psychology recognize that school leaders may feel overwhelmed by the demands of…

Struggling to jump-start education in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, the district school board has decided to reopen its first buildings not as regular public schools, but as charter schools. Indeed, the board's vote followed weeks of high-level talks among officials in the offices of the governor, the state schools superintendent, the state…

This article deals with school districts' K-8 configurations. Cincinnati, Cleveland, Milwaukee, New York, and Philadelphia are among the districts making the change, driven by a small body of research and a rising pile of anecdotes suggesting that K-8 configurations help academic performance, decrease discipline problems, enhance parent…

New data from a survey of more than 500 school districts show the average salary of their superintendents has risen by more than 12 percent over the past decade in inflation-adjusted dollars, and that of their high school principals by more than 4 percent, while the average teacher salary declined by nearly 2 percent. Educational Research Service,…

District leaders in Philadelphia are pushing for significant cutbacks in teachers' seniority rights. The proposal that principals be allowed to disregard seniority in most hiring decisions has outraged the teachers' union. For nearly 40 years, job openings for Philadelphia teachers have been filled primarily on that basis. In this article, the…