charter schools

For the first time, the State Charter School Board has evaluated Utah’s 81 charter schools in three key areas — academics, finances and governance — creating a baseline for comparing the schools next year. Not everyone thinks it’s a good idea.

State officials opened a financial investigation into Children First Academy of Dallas. Records show that school leaders have hired multiple family members, some of them with six-figure salaries.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been pressing his idea of a "homegrown workforce" to feed New York City's tech industry, and it is one he is trying to foster in the city's public schools. The Academy for Software Engineering, for instance, a high school in Manhattan devoted to computer science, opened in September, and the school received 1,400 applications for its next freshman class of 125.

Democrats on the legislature's Education Committee voted Monday to advance three bills that would either change the certification requirements for taxpayer-financed virtual charter schools or delay their operation in Maine. They feel the state should not subsidize the for-profit entities.

Thousands of people wearing bright yellow caps rallied in the Loop's Federal Plaza in support of privately run charter schools, which are under more scrutiny because of the city's plan to close 53 neighborhood schools.

Leaders of the city in the impoverished Delta region — known as the crossroads of the blues where Robert Johnson once lived — hope improved education will help stanch a hemorrhaging population that now stands at 18,000.

Now in its sixth year, the Adelaide L. Sanford Charter School was supposed to be a better place for hundreds of kids in a district that has long failed its students. However, an examination of the school and its leadership reveals a faltering institution that provides bare-bones learning facilities while using millions of dollars in state and federal aid, bolstering a real estate fiefdom controlled by the school’s founder, Fredrica Bey.

Administrators at the Monterey County Office of Education are putting the finishing touches on the $1.5 million remodeling of its Blanco Circle offices in Salinas that will house the new Millennium charter school. Set to start classes in August, Millennium has 116 students enrolled—58 freshmen and 58 sophomores—and its principal.

U.S. News & World Report's annual rankings of the nation's best high schools are out, and the results suggest students thrive when given access to curriculum and instruction that's significantly more challenging than what a typical American student receives.

Charter school families in Horry County will rejoice in August when Coastal Leadership Academy opens its doors, providing a charter high school option for students who now attend charter schools that only provide instruction through grade eight.