Hundreds of U.S. schools will supplement fire drills and tornado training next fall with simulations of school shootings. In response to the December shootings by an intruder at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, several states have enacted or are considering laws that require more and new types of school safety drills, more…

Jeb Bush left the Florida governor's office in 2007 with a legacy of having brought sweeping changes to his state's education system, through hard-edged policies that gave parents and students more choices and demanded more of schools. Today, that legacy seems poised to grow--and well beyond Florida. In state capitals across the country, numerous…

Dozens of schools are slated for aggressive interventions over the next three years under a new, multistate effort that aims to clear hurdles that have hindered previous attempts to improve underperforming schools. Education officials in Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, and New York have agreed to partner with Mass Insight…

Teachers in Louisiana may soon think twice before sending a text message or e-mail to a student from a personal electronic device. A new state law requires all Louisiana districts to implement policies requiring documentation of every electronic interaction between teachers and students through a nonschool-issued device, such as a personal…

As students displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita continue returning to their home school districts in Louisiana and Mississippi, tens of thousands remain scattered elsewhere in those states, in nearby states, and across the nation. Months after schools began rolling out the welcome mat for families fleeing New Orleans and other storm-ravaged…

Historically, it has been tough to get teachers for urban districts, but this is not the case in Baltimore, Maryland, anymore. Since 2002, the New Teacher Project has been finding at least 10 applicants for each teaching job it fills for the once hard-to-staff Baltimore district. Armed with unorthodox recruitment strategies, the group targets…

This article reports the delayed release of information by many states about whether schools and districts have made adequate yearly progress under the federal No Child Left Behind Act until after September 8. Among the states that delayed their release of complete information include Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, and Massachusetts. State…

Seeking to grasp what she called a "golden opportunity for rebirth" out of the wreckage of Hurricane Katrina, Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco asked the Louisiana legislature last week to embrace a plan that would give the state control of most New Orleans public schools. This article talks about the governor's plan to let the state…

After years of trying to fix trouble schools one at a time, a number of states are weighing stronger measures for intervening in low-performing school districts. The shift is seen as a response to the federal No Child Left Behind Act. States are turning in a bigger way to district-level strategies, in part because as their own accountability…

State and local officials are slowly untangling complicated webs of accountability, testing, and graduation policies, hoping to give thousands of students displaced by Hurricane Katrina a better handle on their academic standing. While officials in Texas, Tennessee, and Alabama offered some guidance to such students, school leaders in…