Once defeated, Indiana Senate to vote on school superintendent bill

A plan to give the governor control over the state school superintendent failed in the Indiana Senate, but is once again heading back to the chamber. In order to do so, senators had to make significant changes. A Senate committee has now heard the bill that passed the House. Read more>>

Members of the state Board of Education voted for Steve Paine to be the new superintendent of schools. Paine was state superintendent during the Manchin administration from 2005-11. He’s currently the interim superintendent in Wayne County. Read more>>

The push by Wisconsin public schools to ask for more money from local property taxpayers isn’t stopping, with 65 referendums going before voters in the spring election. About half of the districts will ask voters on April 4 to sign off on new debt while the other half want permission to exceed revenue caps. Read more>>

Matt Zalaznick

Neither Principal Mike Havener nor any of his administrators preview stories the students at Kirkwood High School produce for their TV broadcast, or for The Kirkwood Call newspaper or its website. Read more>>

A first day of hearings on a prospective overhaul of how the state funds public schools drew superintendents and others from across the state, unhappy with many of its specifics and skeptical that the plan would be constitutional. Read more>>

The state House approved a bill that would allow people to carry a concealed weapon at certain churches. It also would allow someone to carry a concealed weapon at a site where there’s both church services and a school—but only during hours when school is not in session. Schools that allow churches to use their buildings could still keep a no-gun policy. Read more>>

Gov. Larry Hogan is looking for an additional $23.7 million for Baltimore schools, extra funding that would be contingent upon the General Assembly passing "accountability legislation" for city schools that would include an audit of the school system's finances. Read more>>

Learning-styles lingo—along with directives that make learning-styles-accommodation mandatory—has been around since at least the 1980s, plaguing algebra teachers wondering how to present material in ways that accommodate all of those preferred styles. But according to some 30 neuroscientists, the learning-styles approach is bunk. Read more>>

For schools in communities with large populations of unlawfully present immigrants, the specter of having ICE agents show up during class is too much. Though there is a policy stating that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and immigration agents should refrain from enforcement actions at K-12 schools, there is no statute or law guaranteeing it. Read more>>

​Four large school districts are implementing Schoology’s learning management system, including El Paso ISD, Denver Public Schools, Cincinnati Public Schools and Virginia Beach City Public Schools. Read more>>

Zinkerz Inc. has just launched a new online platform on both Zinkerz Pro and Zinkerz Online Educators for the SAT Math Subject test. Students gain access to practice problems, mini-tests, full exams, flashcards, comprehensive tutorials and test-taking strategies guaranteed to improve their overall score. Read more>>

Legends of Learning launches its game-based learning platform with more than 500 curriculum-based education games for middle school earth and space science, life sciences and physical science curricula. The games, created by over 300 games developers, are based on academic research conducted in partnership with Vanderbilt University. Read more>>

​Dave Piperato has been picked as the Pennsylvania district's new superintendent, replacing Superintendent Carole Geary in August. Piperato is the principal at the Emmaus High School in the East Penn School District, where he served since 2007. Read more>>

The Hillsboro City Schools' board of education has selected Tim Davis as their next superintendent. He is currently serving as a principal for the fourth and fifth grades at Hillsboro Elementary School. Davis will replace current Superintendent James Smith. Read more>>

Fredrick McDowell, most recently the deputy chief academic support officer for the School District of Philadelphia, has been named as the new superintendent for the Trenton school district. The New Jersey district has seen a lot of turnover at the top, with five people having held the position over the past 10 years. Read more>>