Illinois House once again backs elected Chicago school board

House legislation calling for an elected Chicago Board of Education has once again passed with strong bipartisan support, but the bill may still have a difficult road ahead. The bill, which would triple the size of Chicago’s existing school board and allow residents to vote on their representation, was approved. Read more>>

Reforms to the state's controversial A-F performance ratings for public schools were approved by the Texas Senate. The bill restructures campus and school district performance metrics by reducing the current five categories to four: student achievement, school performance, school climate and societal and demographic factors. Read more>>

The Indiana attorney general's office filed a civil lawsuit seeking more than $3 million in damages from two former School Town of Munster administrators who allegedly received more than $850,000 in overpayments for a 15-year period. Read more>>

Emily Rogan

In a classroom in New Hampshire, second-graders pull out iPads to film themselves discussing the characters of a book they are reading. Read more>>

A legal group and six parents have filed a lawsuit that challenges the constitutionality of a San Diego USD plan to protect Muslim students from bullying. ​In April, trustees in the districts voted to create a policy that would protect Muslim students from bullying by, among other steps, increasing lessons about Islam. Read more>>

A defunct Columbus charter school owes money two years after FCI Academy abruptly closed its doors in 2015. The charter school’s sponsor, Lake Erie West, pulled funding and forced the school to shut down because it said FCI Academy failed to pay taxes, was a half million dollars in debt and wasn't’t reporting financial records correctly. Read more>>

The state education commissioner has reversed an earlier decision and will allow the school board of a rural Texas school district to remain in place despite concerns over violations of state rules. The Texas Education Agency still plans to lower the district's accreditation and to appoint a manager to help oversee the district. Read more>>

Steven Wyman-Blackburn

With personalized learning on the rise, more K12 educators are looking for learning management systems that easily identify content based on individual student needs. Read more>>

There is a movement trying to break down the social, economic and psychological barriers that keep low-income rural students from having a shot at the elite range of the American dream. Most low-income students rely on their parents for college advice, and many of them end up going to colleges that are less rigorous than they can handle, the research shows. Read more>>

Every year thousands of Illinois students find they're not prepared for the academic rigors of college, even though they tackled general-level classes that school officials labeled as "college prep." Why not? One big reason: Those general-level classes—typically neither remedial nor advanced—weren't tough enough. Read more>>

Now that the school year is winding down and high school seniors get set to graduate, it’s a good time to look back at the some of the special programs in which students participate outside the classroom. Many are supported by income tax credit donations, along with special fund-raising in the community. Read more>>

MeTEOR Education is expanding its High-Impact Learning Experiences approach to school and classroom design with the launch of its onsite and web-based training and coaching services. The newly MeTEOR Connect web-based education services support includes videos, discussion guides and other materials. Read more>>

myON will sponsor the Building a Community of Readers professional learning community on edWeb.net as a forum for professional learning and collaboration focused on all aspects of literacy. Educators will be able to collaborate in online discussions, watch webinars, earn CE certificates and more. Read more>>

CEV Multimedia released a new social media marketing course that focuses on topics such as the basics of social media, laws and ethics, mobile marketing, and strategies for social media campaigns. Delivered through iCEV, teachers have access to a playlist of videos, presentations, lab activities, assessments, lesson plans and more. Read more>>

Garett Smith, currently Newport News' executive director of school leadership for the last five years, will be Staunton City Schools' next superintendent. He replaces Linda Reviea, who is retiring. Read more>>

The Ohio district found its next superintendent, Chris Briggs, just one county to the north. The Pickerington Board of Education will hire Briggs, who has been superintendent of Northridge schools since 2013. Valerie Browning-Thompson, superintendent since 2014, is retiring after a 31-year career in education. Read more>>

The Detroit Public School Community District confirmed Nikolai Vitti as its new superintendent. The Financial Review Commission, which oversees the school's finances, voted to approve a five-year contract with Vitti, who previously had been superintendent of the Duval County Public Schools in Florida. Read more>>