Creating A Safer School in Just One Year

By Amy Buffenbarger Belmont was a school run by the students. They skipped class and roamed the halls in the hundreds. Fights were a near daily occurrence. Police cars regularly parked outside. An emergency alarm sat next to the cash registers in the cafeteria to sound when students tried to steal the lunch money. Teachers [...]

Poverty Puts Struggling Readers in Double Jeopardy

By Cindy Long When does a student transition from learning to read to reading to learn? Experts agree that third grade is the turning point. What’s troubling is that two-thirds of our country’s third graders aren’t reading on grade level. What’s worse is that those students are far more likely to drop out of school [...]

The White House Praises NEA’s Anti-Bullying Campaign

By Mary Ellen Flannery Northern Virginia teacher Jaim Foster stood in the Oval Office today and delivered a personal message to President Barack Obama about bullying: It needs to stop, so that every child can be safe and successful. Foster was joined in his trip to the White House by NEA President Dennis Van Roekel [...]

House of Representatives Slashes Education for Low-Income Kids

By Mary Ellen Flannery Almost 200,000 of this nation’s neediest children would lose their slots in Head Start programs, if U.S. Senators opt to approve a draconian federal budget passed by House Republicans last month. On Wednesday, the Senate agreed to approve a much smaller menu of spending reductions to prevent an imminent government shutdown, [...]

Can You Stand Up to Bullying?

By Mary Ellen Flannery Just one caring adult can make all the difference in the world to a bullied child, research shows. One caring adult can keep them from dropping out of school. One caring adult can even save their life. NEA is asking you to be that adult. NEA’s Bully Free: It Starts With Me, [...]

Kids on the Move

By Mary Ellen Flannery About 13 percent of American children, most of them poor, Black, or learning English, will switch schools four or more times by eighth grade – a record of disruption that almost certainly limits their opportunities to achieve, according to a recent report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. The report, commissioned [...]

After-School Programs Prove Key to Closing Gaps

By Mary Ellen Flannery When the last bell rings at Van Buren Middle School in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the real “work” begins – that is, the after-school apprenticeships in fields as far-ranging as Mexican dance and community action. This is not school, plus two hours. It’s not the same books, desks and assignments but more [...]

Does Bullying Really Get Better?

By Mary Ellen Flannery High-profile and heartbreaking incidents of student bullying have happened so frequently in recent months, especially among gay and lesbian students, that there’s a new word for the phenomenon: bullicide. And it’s left educators and parents alike wondering—just what in the world are we doing wrong? How is it some of our [...]

New Report Focuses on Minority Parent Engagement

By Cynthia McCabe A report out today identifies best practices for bridging the minority parent-school divide, compiled from study of leading educational organizations from across the U.S. It also outlines policy recommendations to Congress and the U.S. Department of Education as it prepares to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in the year ahead. [...]

The Economics Behind International Education Rankings

By Cynthia McCabe This week’s release of international education rankings placing U.S. students in the middle of the pack for reading and science and below average in math contained few surprises. But what might have been overlooked in the horse race coverage of how the students stacked up is an economic link that further supports [...]

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