The United States has many lessons it can learn from how other countries are deploying virtual education and how it might partner up with those countries in different ways to offer a wider range of educational and cultural experiences to its students. This report, part of "Education Week's" ongoing series on virtual education, draws out…

California legislators swiftly passed a budget bill last week aimed at sheltering school busing dollars from a midyear budget cut many districts and advocates said particularly hurt rural school systems, along with urban districts with desegregation plans. While the measure, which Gov. Jerry Brown was expected to sign into law, would restore $248…

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…

President Barack Obama's call for every state to require school attendance until age 18 may spark a flurry of action in some statehouses, but changing attendance laws will do little by itself to drive down the nation's dropout rates, experts on the issue say. In his State of the Union address last month, President Obama said states should require…

State lawmakers and community activists are making a new push for "parent trigger" laws, measures that let parents vote to convert academically struggling schools to charters or to radically restructure them in other ways. But proponents and critics of the often-controversial, citizen-led efforts are divided on just how profound an…

K12 Inc., the nation's largest provider of online precollegiate education, was launched in 2000 and went public seven years later after raising about $140 million in revenue. Like other companies, it moved from being privately held to being publicly traded to raise more money quickly, increase brand awareness, and accelerate business goals. The…

Geography may not be particularly known as a hot topic among today's students--even some advocates suggest it suffers from an image problem--but by at least one measure, the subject is starting to come into its own. Across more than 30 topics covered in the Advanced Placement (AP) program, participation in geography is rising faster than any…

The use of "value added" information appears poised to expand into the nation's teacher colleges, with more than a dozen states planning to use the technique to analyze how graduates of training programs fare in classrooms. Supporters say the data could help determine which teacher education pathways produce teachers who are at least as…

Before awarding waivers from core tenets of the No Child Left Behind Act to 11 states, the U.S. Department of Education ordered changes to address a significant weakness in most states' proposals: how they would hold schools accountable for groups of students deemed academically at risk, particularly those in special education or learning English.…

A Bangladeshi girl who spends her out-of-school time translating documents for her parents' immigration hearings. A group of Chinese high school boys whose teachers can't figure out why they're so disengaged. A Vietnamese boy who speaks almost no English and is the only Asian student at his low-performing school. A Korean-American girl at the top…

An external panel that includes several prominent critics of teacher education has been tapped to craft the performance standards for the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), the new organization's leaders announced last week. Among the standards under consideration: how programs ensure that candidates know their content;…

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…

Creating private school vouchers for special education students--programs that are largely unchallenged in court, unlike other publicly financed tuition vouchers--can be the perfect way to clear a path for other students to get school options, according to school choice proponents. At least seven states--Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Ohio,…

Neuroscience exploded into the education conversation more than 20 years ago, in step with the evolution of personal computers and the rise of the Internet, and policymakers hoped medical discoveries could likewise help doctors and teachers understand the "hard wiring" of the brain. That conception of how the brain works, exacerbated by the…

Nearly six decades after "Brown" v. "Board of Education," the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that ushered in an era of efforts to integrate public schools, charter school advocates and researchers are shining a light on a number of those independent public schools that are integrated by design. Two new reports--one from…