With the recent passage of SB 1947, Illinois, so often an example of what not to do in school finance, is now poised to be something of a model for the rest of the country. SB 1947 rewrites the state’s school finance laws, which were the most inequitable in the country. Under this new system, Illinois will now fund districts… Read more →
I grew up in Joiner, Arkansas—a small farming community located in the heart of the Delta; the population back then was about 800, and now it’s even less than that. My grandfather, who raised me alongside my grandmother, worked as a sharecropper—and my family made sure I got a good education because they knew school was the key to a… Read more →
This is an interview with Gary Funk, the founding Director of Rural Schools Collaborative, based in Cambridge, Wisconsin. The interview was conducted by Ryan Fowler of TNTP. A longer version of this post appeared on the TNTP blog. Q: Can you talk about your background in rural education, and how you got involved with Rural Schools Collaborative? A: I began as an elementary school… Read more →
As school reforms go, it’s not sexy, it’s not new, and it’s not at all controversial. So it probably won’t get as much attention as Betsy DeVos being voted Donald Trumps’ worst cabinet member by readers of the New York Times, which is really saying something given that she’s in the same gaggle as Scott Pruitt of the Environmental Protection… Read more →
School reform advocate Derrell Bradford and policy writer Andy Rotherham hit on it. Illinois education writer Tracy Dell’Angela has a blog focused on it. Teacher/education writer Robert Pondiscio said it was a factor in the anti-charter vote in Massachusetts last fall. And former Education Secretary Arne Duncan famously broached the subject in 2013. “It” is the long overdue conversation about… Read more →
Throughout my 11 years of teaching, and three semesters of teaching future and current teachers at the college level, I can count on one hand the number of American Indian teachers either already in the field or training to be a teacher. As a Chippewa-Cree woman teaching on a reservation in Montana, I find this disparity frustrating and disheartening. Growing… Read more →
Education Week, 6-22-2016
Rural schools are increasingly relying on online courses to expand education opportunity for students, especially in the midst of budget cuts and teacher shortages. For many of these schools, online credit recovery can free up staff members, expand course offerings, and provide more opportunities for students to earn credits needed to graduate.
A new report published by the Institute of Education Sciences and written by the Regional Educational Laboratory Northwest examined successful credit recovery strategies in Montanato determine how schools, especially rural ones, can administer successful online credit-recovery programs. The report found that among schools in Montana that offer credit recovery through a statewide online system, those that had the highest passing rates had several strategies in common.