Students Quiz Education Sec. Arne Duncan

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has spent much of the back-to-school season talking with teachers and parents. His department recently oversaw the awarding of more than $4 billion to public schools in select states. While Duncan has addressed countless teachers in recent weeks, now, he tackles students' questions.

Students Face New Textbook Picks: Rent vs. Buy, Print vs. E-book

With another summer ending, the time has come to ask the perennial question: Could this be the year higher education finally embraces the e-book? Some think that developments since the last buying cycle, particularly the arrival of Apple's iPad computing tablet, might foreshadow an especially good year for electronic texts.

LA Board Wants Test Scores Part of Teacher Reviews

The Los Angeles Unified School District board has endorsed the controversial system of using student scores on standardized tests as a way to measure teacher performance. The board on Thursday authorized district Superintendent Ramon Cortines to start negotiating with unions to develop a new system to evaluate teachers and administrators that includes using so-called value-added data.

Scholastic Books Revamps Its Marketing

When Karen Rice was a little girl, Santa Claus visited multiple times a year. At least it felt that way when Ms. Rice, now a 22-year-old elementary-school teacher in Elizabethtown, Ky., got the books she ordered from the Scholastic Book Club. This school year, however, Scholastic is taking a new approach to getting its books into classrooms. For the first time, it plans to reach teachers using a combination of social networking, expanded e-commerce and new back-to-school promotions, in addition to the standard paper catalogs.

Formula to Grade Teachers' Skill Gains Acceptance, and Critics

How good is one teacher compared with another? A growing number of school districts have adopted a system called value-added modeling to answer that question, provoking battles from Washington to Los Angeles — with some saying it is an effective method for increasing teacher accountability, and others arguing that it can give an inaccurate picture of teachers' work.

Category: News

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