One thing is immediately apparent when Erica Vuolle teaches: Not a moment of time is wasted. Ms. Vuolle is among the 40 teachers-in-training at the Match Teacher Residency, a teacher education program run by the Boston-based Match Education, a nonprofit charter-management organization that requires candidates to practice and master a repertoire of…

Nearly every state has signed on to use the Common Core State Standards as a framework for teaching English/language arts and mathematics to students. Translating them for the classroom, however, requires schools, teachers, and students to change the way they approach teaching and learning. This report examines the progress some states have made…

Sparked by the Common Core State Standards, teachers and literacy experts are arguing about the role of a time-honored pillar of English/language arts instruction: classroom activities designed to help students understand what they are about to read. The attacks on--and defenses of--"prereading" are unfolding largely in cyberspace, through online…

This is not an average classroom. All of the 15 students in the English class Christin M. Bradshaw is teaching on a late-October afternoon are dressed identically in desert fatigues and combat boots. All the young men have uniform buzz cuts. Outside, there is the faint popping of distant rifle practice and the shouted commands of drill sergeants…

The phrase "21st-century skills" is everywhere in education policy discussions these days, from faculty lounges to the highest echelons of the U.S. education system. Broadly speaking, it refers to a push for schools to teach critical-thinking, analytical, and technology skills, in addition to the "soft skills" of creativity, collaboration, and…

Of all the recent budget cuts made by the Eagle County, Colorado, school district--the loss of 89 staff jobs through attrition and layoffs, a 1.5 percent across-the-board pay cut, and the introduction of three furlough days--none sparked as much anger or faced the same scrutiny as the decision to cut three foreign-language teaching positions and…

The National Writing Project has drawn a steady and loyal following over more than three decades among teachers seeking to refine their own skills, reflect on their practice, and learn strategies for teaching their young scribes. After years of fending off critics and proposed budget cuts, the long-standing national program is moving beyond the…

This article reports on an obstacle to achievement that seems particularly pronounced among Native American students high mobility. The turnover rate for one school, North Middle School in Rapid City, South Dakota, was 50 percent overall last year--meaning that half the school's 468 students came or went after the start of the school year. Many of…

Through order and English immersion, a network of charter schools strives to turn Latino students into informed citizens and leaders inside and outside the community. Chicago-based United Neighborhood Organization, or UNO, is a Latino advocacy group with a history of community organizing. The group recently received a $98 million grant from the…

Researchers and policymakers may be continuing to debate solutions to the nation's reading woes, but many struggling schools appear to have reached a consensus on the subject, even if not by choice. As President Bush's flagship reading initiative hits full stride, it is yielding a more uniform approach to teaching the essential skills to children…

This article reports that educators and experts across the country who work with English-language learners (ELLs) are moving toward a consensus that the federal Reading First program needs to be refined to become more effective for children acquiring English. Administrators in several big-city districts with large numbers of such students are…

Museums and cultural institutions have long provided a crucial resource for students and teachers in science classes. Many of those institutions consider working with schools to be a core part of their missions. This article describes Urban Advantage, one of the largest and most coordinated programs in the country which goes further than many…

A year and a half ago, President Bush proposed creating a new federal mathematics effort that would offer millions of dollars in grants to school districts to adopt proven strategies for improving classroom instruction in that subject. Administration officials had pictured the new program, called Math Now, as being modeled on Reading First, the $1…

Interest in foreign-language instruction in preschool is growing, both among parents and early-childhood educators trying to meet the demand. The interest, though, comes at a time when some districts are scaling back on such programs in the elementary grades in order to spend more time on reading and mathematics--the subjects currently tested to…

Taking a position that is unusual these days, New Jersey officials are promoting research that says bilingual education methods have an edge over English-only methods in teaching English-language learners to read. This article talks about the importance of bilingual education or a blended approach in the implementation of Reading First Program in…