Search

Focuses on strategies of Juli Kwikkel, an elementary principal, to cope up with the paperwork required in complying the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act in Storm Lake, Iowa. Requirements for NCLB-related grants; Number of enrolled students in his school; Aspects that NCLB is particular with.

Focuses on the relevance of research term papers to the study of history. Reluctance of history teachers to assign long term papers to students; Difficulty of reading and rating of term papers for teachers; Tendency of teachers to assign essays, opinion papers and summaries of readings.

The article looks at policies and programs in U.S. high schools designed to make students' senior year more rigorous and better prepare them for college. It states that by senior year, many students have already earned a majority of the required credits, have been accepted to college, and lack the motivation to focus. Initiatives designed to enrich the final year of high school include increased course loads, early graduation incentives, and senior projects such as papers and presentations.

The article discusses parental involvement in education in the U.S. and examines how education policies proposed by U.S. President Barack Obama's administration in their paper "Blueprint for Reform" may alter family engagement in schools. It explores how funding for Parental Information and Resource Centers (PIRCs), which are federally mandated parental information support groups, may be altered and examines the importance of parental involvement in the reform of failing schools.

This article reports that special education can eat districts alive. This was confirmed by Clark Easter, founder and chairman of 4GL School Solutions Inc. It devours 20 percent to 25 percent of the average district's budget with only 11 percent to 12 percent of students. Many special education teachers spend nearly half of the day buried under piles of paper. Inequitable resource allocation, staff burnout and turnover and near zealous focus on compliance rather than instruction further complicate the scene. A handful of districts have deployed technology-based special education management systems to save time and money and better serve special education students. INSET: The Software Checklist.

The article offers suggestions on how U.S school districts can save money. Topics discussed include reduction in special education staff through attrition by 10 percent in order to save the time that special education teachers spend in meetings and paper work, flexibility of federal grants that can help districts achieve budget goals and impact of financial crisis and depletion in government stimulus on per-pupil spending.

The article discusses "Pathways to High Performance: Turning Around Underperforming Public Schools," a white paper which chronicles the educational reform of the Charlotte-Mecklenberg Schools (CMS) located in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The article discusses the changes that the U.S. Supreme Court made to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) and how this will impact school districts that must archive electronic correspondence and materials. The Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) has created a white paper that explains the changes to the law and is called "School Districts, Data Retention, and Federal eDiscovery Rules: The Case for a Full E-mail Archiving Solution Now."

The article reports that the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools has released the policy paper, "Creating schools our nation needs," which examines the impact of public charter schools can have on the United States education system. Alliance President Nelson Smith calls for a "new schools" strategy that would use charter laws to produce high-quality public schools in communities that most need them.

The article reports on the publication of "WritingNext" by the Alliance for Excellent Education in the U.S. It aimed to identify effective instructional practices and aid administrators and educators on writing instruction. Moreover, the authors of the paper listed three practices that will affect on students' skills which include explicit instruction in writing strategies, precise and systematic education in summary writing and collaborative writing.

The article presents an interview of Michael Petrilli, vice president for national programs and policy at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. In response to a question on the provisions of defining a highly qualified teachers, he said that with the highly qualified teachers provision, the U.S. has gone back to old-fashioned, top-down regulation focused on paper credentials instead of on student learning. When asked about how to fix this system, he replied that the best way to figure out who is effective is to look at the gains students make over time and reward those teachers.

Reports on the cost of updated version of the federal Individuals with Disabilities Act on federal spending in the U.S. Identification of disabled students; Reduction of paper works for teachers; Approval of the bill by the Senate.

Investigates the involvement of various students to the cheating incident in Chicago, Illinois. Accounts on the inability of school personnel to ensure the security of test papers; Details on the test clues provided by teachers to the students taking the exam; Measures taken by education administrators to reprimand and punish violators.

Reports that the U.S. Supreme Court decided that teachers can continue the age-old practice of asking students to swap papers and grade one another's work.

Focuses on the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court on the legality of students correcting one anothers' papers. History of the legal fight; Questions on the whether the court should dictate classroom administration; Support of the National Education Association on peer grading.