Photo by Diedra Laird, The Charlotte Observer. For years, parents and educators in poverty-ridden pockets of the South sensed the public schools were shortchanging their children. And they were right. Their schools face … Read more
Parents stand up to speak at school board meetings, clutching a copy of the newspaper. The dog-eared newsprint is the source of research that buttresses their comments. School officials pore over the newspaper, looking for academic trends in other districts … Read more
In education, it’s the era of accountability. Teachers are tested to measure their ability to instruct. Students take standardized tests to find out what they have learned and where they rank compared with others. Controversy and debate swirl around the … Read more
Ten young teens draped themselves over chairs, forming a sloppy circle in the center of an empty middle-school classroom. I sat on the edge of the circle, an outsider looking in on an extraordinary preadolescent confessional. “OK, clean time. How … Read more