Big Study Links Good Teachers to Lasting Gain

"Elementary- and middle-school teachers who help raise their students’ standardized-test scores seem to have a wide-ranging, lasting positive effect on those students’ lives beyond academics, including lower teenage-pregnancy rates and greater college matriculation and adult earnings, according to a new study that tracked 2.5 million students over 20 years."

Students of Online Schools Are Lagging

"The number of students in virtual schools run by educational management organizations rose sharply last year, according to a new report being published Friday, and far fewer of them are proving proficient on standardized tests compared with their peers in other privately managed charter schools and in traditional public schools."

Startups Aim to Bring Education Industry Into 21st Century

"For many educational institutions, financials have limited them in bringing technology into classrooms, but some argue the formality and rigidity of these places have created an uphill battle to integrate new technology. A handful of education technology startups are looking to change this. . ."

Profits and Questions at Online Charter Schools

"Agora is one of the largest in a portfolio of similar public schools across the country run by K12. Eight other for-profit companies also run online public elementary and high schools, enrolling a large chunk of the more than 200,000 full-time cyberpupils in the United States."

Report: Half of U.S. Schools Fail Federal Standards

"Nearly half of America's public schools didn't meet federal achievement standards this year, marking the largest failure rate since the much-criticized No Child Left Behind Law took effect a decade ago, according to a national report released Thursday."

eCheating: Students Find High-Tech Ways to Deceive Teachers

"Everything's going digital these days — including cheating. As students gain access to sophisticated gadgets both at school and at home, educators are on the lookout for new kinds of cheating."

National Report Praises School-Choice System for New York City Students

"New York has the most effective school-choice system of any of the nation’s largest school districts, allowing students and parents the most freedom and providing them with the most relevant information on educational performance, according to a new Brookings Institution report scheduled for publication online Wednesday."

Supreme Court Rejects Worship at Public School Appeal

"The U.S. Supreme Court let stand on Monday a ruling that religious groups cannot use public schools facilities for worship services outside of normal school hours in a case about church-state separation."

International Comparison Of Teacher Quality

"Not only does our public-education system rank 26th out of 34 nations when it comes to graduation rates, but the U.S. also fails at treating teachers as professionals."

Districts Pay Less in Poor Schools, Report Says

"Tens of thousands of schools serving low-income students are being shortchanged because districts spend fewer state and local dollars on teacher salaries in those schools than on salaries in schools serving higher-income students."