Research suggests that more time in school boosts students’ skills and long-term prospects, but adding productive time to students’ days often means cutting time from their teachers’. And that lost teacher planning and training time, research shows, also matters.
Innovations in technology and how teachers can monitor students’ progress, along with changes to regulations about how long students must spend in class, have made it possible for schools and districts to adopt “competency-based” models in an effort to use students’ time in school more effectively. But implementation varies widely, particularly around whether to do away with traditional grade levels.
Adams County School District 50 won a $120,000 grant this month to explore the use of the Pay For Success financing model to expand early childhood programming.
With names culled from birth records and child-care centers, workers have already dialed up more than 135,000 parents of four-year-olds.
For the first time in the U.S., more district schools than charter schools are expanding the school day or year, according to a recentreport. But the national trend does not appear to be catching on in California.
Shelby County Schools’ ‘blended learning’ pilot program nears the end of its first school year with personalized computer instruction, high hopes for student testing, and a major new funding source.
The U.S. Senate’s education committee voted Wednesday to keep dedicated funding for after-school and summer programs, which initially was not included in its proposed reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), also known as No Child Left Behind.
Before- and after-school programs that serve nearly 45,000 Indiana children each day aren’t a funding priority in Indiana, but an influential state lawmaker said today that it’s time for that to change.
Advocates for after-school programs say their programs are vital resources, but they are often thought of as an after-thought to the traditional school day.
After bursting onto the national scene a few years ago, Pay For Success financing is gaining traction among Colorado school districts and early childhood organizations.