Student Success

Educators and psychologists propose a host of explanations for the apparent uptick in student anxiety. Some point to public events ‚Á„Á¬ terrorism, school shootings, opioid addiction, the coarsening of political discourse in the age of Trump. Others blame technology—devices that substitute electronic contact for face-to-face interaction, and social media that transform school-hours drama into a […]

Last fall, a national problem arrived in Superintendent Richard Scaletta's corner of rural northwestern Pennsylvania. Principals in the General McLane School District began reporting unprecedented levels of misbehavior: students in frequent and severe distress, sometimes kicking, biting or throwing things.

Pressure to raise achievement test scores has become the driving force behind what is taught and how. Worse, the results from these tests reveal only a fraction of the overall picture of whether students are learning—and whether teachers are effective in their jobs, says Daniel Koretz. As one of the nation’s foremost experts on education […]

Dallas ISD’s morning drop-in centers for homeless high school students provide necessities such as take-home food, hygiene products and a place to wash clothes. The program’s managers say they also strive to offer an equally important, if less tangible, resource: trust. Homeless teens rarely tell anyone about their predicament because they’re afraid of “a multitude […]

Editor’s Note: Nuts and Bolts delves into the development of an innovative program. District leaders of Piscataway Township Schools five years ago decided they needed to more effectively serve its large—and rapidly growing—population of English language learners. A combination of grants and community outreach allowed the New Jersey district to adopt a “cradle to career” […]

Schools fail to adequately teach the history of American slavery, partly because teachers lack the preparation to cover it, according to a recent study from the Southern Poverty Law Center. Also, students have little basic knowledge about the role slavery played in shaping the nation: Only 8 percent of high school seniors surveyed could identify […]