In an effort to improve high school graduation and college enrollment rates among students who are Black, Latino, or experiencing poverty, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation established the Networks for School Improvement (NSI) initiative and awarded five-year grants to intermediary organizations to develop networks of school teams that work…

Wisconsin school districts received more than $2 billion in one-time federal relief funds to address the effects of COVID-19 and boost student recovery and district finances. Early spending focused on educational technology to help students and schools adapt to virtual learning, while later spending focused on catching students up academically…

In March 2020 one hundred and twenty-two billion in federal funding delivered through the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act was intended to mitigate the harm caused by school closures during the pandemic and ensure the appropriate re-opening of schools across America to get students "back on track." Since July 2021, AASA, The School…

With 15 months left before the September 2024 obligation deadline, AASA, The School Superintendents Association, launched its fourth American Rescue Plan (ARP) survey of school district leaders to ascertain what spending priorities and challenges they are anticipating as the fiscal timeline tightens. This 2023 survey administered in June 2023…

AASA, The School Superintendents Association, surveyed hundreds of district leaders across the U.S. in July about their plans to utilize American Rescue Plan (ARP) and other federal COVID-19 relief funding to address the pandemic-related student learning recovery. In 2020 and 2021, Congress directed close to $200 billion to state and local…

On January 10, 2019, Governor Newsom released his Budget Proposal for the 2019-2020 fiscal year, which includes around $60 billion in state funds for K-12 schools. The budget bill and implementation bills will be deliberated and modified in each house in the upcoming months after which they are expected to incorporate significant revisions that…

The COVID-19 pandemic offers an opportunity to reconsider the approach and delivery of public education. With a large infusion of one-time federal relief aid and a depth of need among students most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic that the system is still trying to understand, state and local education leaders will need to plan for both (1)…

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to present a comprehensive framework for capturing the complex concept the authors call school improvement. Design/methodology/approach: The author begins by anchoring that framework on an historical understanding of school improvement. The framework itself is then presented. Five dimensions are described: the…

The purpose of this guide is to provide states, districts, and schools with information and support to prepare applications for 2015-2016 School Improvement Grants (SIGs). The guide includes tools, checklists, and questions for SEAs and LEAs aligned with the revised SIG requirements, primarily focused on how to leverage the "planning…

Education is seen as an instrument "per excellence" for effecting national development. Education is seen as a means of developing potentialities and capacity building. Any educational Curriculum that aims at developing human potentials must target at functionality. Functionality here refers to curriculum that is designed to teach…

Evidence continues to emerge about the effect indoor air quality has on a student's ability to learn. One study cited by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows moderate changes in room temperature affect children's abilities to perform mental tasks requiring concentration, such as addition, multiplication and sentence comprehension.…

Many universities exist apart from their community's public schools. A New Orleans area public university took measures to facilitate collaborative partnerships with four public schools. Those schools were taken over and converted to charter schools by state officials for poor performance. The partnerships created simultaneous opportunities and…

When trying to reach their sustainability goals, schools and school districts often run into obstacles, including financing, training, and implementation tools. Last fall, the U.S. Green Building Council-Georgia (USGBC-Georgia) launched its High Performance, Healthy Schools (HPHS) Program to help Georgia schools overcome those obstacles. By…

In the past eight years, the design standards of classrooms have improved significantly. This movement was instigated by the introduction of the classroom acoustics standard in 2002 from the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), in collaboration with the Acoustical Society of America. The standard, formally known as ANSI S12.60, has become…

In 2007 the Portuguese government launched a major school modernisation programme, and has taken steps to ensure the long-term sustainability of facilities. A specially created state-owned company, Parque Escolar (PE) has already completed 104 schools; 70 are work-in-progress and an additional 39 are under design or tender. Parque Escolar is…