Senate scraps Obama regulations on school accountability

The Senate approved a measure to get rid of regulations outlining how states must carry out a federal law meant to hold schools accountable for student performance. The GOP majority argued that the rules amounted to executive overreach while Democrats said it would remove provisions meant to ensure that schools serve poor children, minorities, ELLs and students with disabilities. Read more>>

A bill that would eliminate the majority of high school end of course exams, allow schools to give the remaining statewide tests in a paper-and-pencil format and seeks to take student test scores out of the grading equation for teachers and schools has begun to make the rounds in Florida’s capital. Read more>>

Despite a push to increase the number of black and Latino students at the city’s most competitive high schools, the number of those students who were offered seats for the fall was essentially unchanged from last year. Only about 10 percent of offers from those specialized schools were extended to black and Latino students, though those students make up about 68 percent of the school system. Read more>>

Tim Goral

In his new book Language at the Speed of Sight: How We Read, Why So Many Can’t, and What Can Be Done About It (Basic Books, 2017), Seidenberg says the answer to the question “Why can’t Johnny read?” stems from how reading is taught. Read more>>

Close to a quarter of all public schools in America are in "fair or poor condition," according to a new report card from the American Society of Civil Engineers. It would take some $380 billion over the next decade to overhaul the thousands of public schools. Read more>>

A driver's education bill moving through the Statehouse would allow any parent to instruct teens preparing to take the state driver's license exam. Most Iowa students take a driving course through their school or a private company. But a 2013 law allowed home-school parents to offer that instruction, and the new bill would expand the option to any parent. Read more>>

Ohio's auditor has ordered a statewide examination of cyber schools' data collection practices after his office found the state's largest online charter school lacked adequate systems to track the time students spent learning. Read more>>

Before President Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos attempt to shift large amounts of taxpayer money into school choice, we should carefully consider what we are getting into. As with health care, improving education is more complex than some might think. Read more>>

A leading factor that leads to complications in adult life is a lack of resources which address mental health issues and behavioral problems. School social workers are the professionals that are trained to address these issues, and we don't have enough of them, currently only 36 in the entire state. Read more>>

Students with and without disabilities can benefit from inclusionary classrooms. Educators and school administrators know this, and have become comfortable with placing students in the same classrooms. But teacher training has failed to keep up with the new reality, leaving general-education teachers ill-equipped to handle the needs of the wider variety of students. Read more>>

The ExamView v11 assessment solution now features a new appearance, expanded learning management system integrations, synchronous and asynchronous assessment potential, the ability to upgrade to online testing capabilities and more. Read more>>

Set in a vibrant environment, Sammie Seal is a free, bilingual educational language game to help students learn parts of speech, including nouns, adjectives, verbs, adjectives and conjunctions. Read more>>

Canvas has recently expanded its customers for Canvas by Instructureto to some of the nation's top K12 districts, including Orange County Public Schools in Florida, San Diego USD in California and Austin ISD in Texas. Read more>>

Interim superintendent Jaime Alicea will lead the New York school district as its new superintendent. He took over temporarily when Sharon Contreras became superintendent of Guilford County Schools in North Carolina. Alicea has been an employee of the Syracuse City School District for 34 years. Read more>>

The Schodack Central School District Board of Education named a longtime administrator as its next superintendent. Jason Chevrier, the director of curriculum, instruction and assessment for the past year, was principal of Castleton Elementary School for 11 years. Read more>>

The New York school district officially appointed Nicholas Dyno as superintendent. Currently serving as interim superintendent since the April 2016 resignation of former Superintendent Scott Farina, Dyno has been with the district for 12 years, most recently serving as assistant superintendent for instruction. Read more>>