Georgia lawmakers send school test refusal bill to governor

Students will have a clear right to refuse to take state tests in schools without being punished if Gov. Nathan Deal signs legislation approved by the Georgia Senate. The bill says schools cannot punish students who refuse to take standardized state tests and encourages school boards to let students take the tests with paper and pencil rather than on a computer. Read more>>

Legislation to change the way districts are funded, which school officials have railed against, is expected to be introduced by the end of the month. The legislation would increase the state's income tax and sales tax. Additionally, to make up the nearly $14 billion needed to fund the commonwealth's 500 school districts, the sales tax would expand to items now exempted. Read more>>

Kansas and nine other states have dropped a lawsuit against the federal government after President Donald Trump’s administration rescinded a Department of Education guidance on school bathrooms. Read more>>

Ariel Siegelman

The world of security can be daunting. Security tools and technologies are often expensive, and school leaders are not typically trained to know what will offer their institutions the greatest benefit. Read more>>

State legislation that would affirm students’ religious rights in schools could be enacted as soon as next school year. But local superintendents question its value and don’t think it will change much if passed as the freedoms of religion the bill cites are currently allowed in public schools. Read more>>

Georgia lawmakers sent several high-profile bills toward floor votes with less than two weeks remaining in this year's session. A bill to grant the state more power to intervene in Georgia's struggling schools is one step closer to a vote in the Senate after the chamber's education committee approved creating a chief turnaround officer position to work with low-performing schools. Read more>>

California lawmakers filed a package of bills in an attempt to divert children from a school-to-prison pipeline that disproportionately affects low-income and black and Latino families. The eight proposals would extend protections for children facing arrest or detention and ease punishment and burdensome fees for those inside the juvenile justice system. Read more>>

An increasing number of rural districts are moving away from the five-day model. But nobody’s really evaluating it or asking what should be the minimum required if a district is going to do it. The states are just letting it happen; it’s unfortunately going to be very hard to reverse because it’s one of those adult-benefit things that you can’t roll back. Read more>>

Maintaining discipline in the classroom can be a challenge for any teacher. And few things can harm other students’ ability to focus and learn more than a particularly disruptive classmate. That much is clear. But sending students away in handcuffs should be a last resort reserved only for the most serious, dangerous behavior. Read more>>

There is a high teacher turnover rate in Utah. Yet the Legislature ended a state-funded program that pays districts extra money so they can assign experienced teachers to work with rookies. Lawmakers explain that the six-year-old plan was meant as a pilot and that local districts could pick up the funding themselves. Which might make some sense, if districts weren't already starved for cash. Read more>>

​A new partnership combines Office Depot, Inc.’s Committed to Learning initiative with Silverback Learning Solutions’ education software Mileposts, Teacher Vitae and EdifyAssess, powered by Silverback Learning, which allow teachers and districts to personalize education learning plans while managing interventions and monitoring achievement. Read more>>

This spring, follow teens surviving extreme situations, explore mysterious occurrences, and cheer on middle schoolers making fresh starts on a horse ranch in three new series from Darby Creek, a division of Lerner Publishing Group. Read more>>

The Summer Reading Boot Camp Kit from Scientific Learning Corp. provides the intensity of practice needed to help students address the root cause of their reading difficulty. The kit includes a bundle of Fast ForWord licenses, web-based training, implementation instructions and motivational materials for students. Read more>>

The Tennessee district's board of education has selected Bob Thomas to be the school system's next superintendent. Assistant superintendent since 1990, he has served in the Knox County School system for his entire career. Read more>>

The Sevastopol School District approved hiring Kyle Luedtke, the superintendent at Benton School District in Wisconsin, as its new superintendent. He will take over for interim Superintendent Steve Cromell, who came out of retirement to fill the position after former Superintendent Linda Underwood took early retirement at the end of 2015-16 school year. Read more>>

One of Utah's top public education managers is headed back to the Ogden City School District. Rich Nye, currently a deputy state superintendent for the Utah Board of Education, will succeed Sandy Caroles as Ogden's superintendent. Nye previously worked as the Ogden district's director of assessment under then-Superintendent Brad Smith. Read more>>