Report Urges Improvements To After-School, Summer Programs After-school and summer programs should be expanded, affordable and accessible to all students and uniform across the state, a task force recommended to the governor Tuesday.

Quality Counts 2009 Here is the link to the Quality Counts 2009 information. The first link, State Report Cards Map, is particularly interesting and provides a quick overview of each state score.

NC Senate Works to Revamp Education Policy The North Carolina Senate is working on revamping public school policies ranging scrapping job protecting tenure laws for teachers to protecting home packed bagged lunches from child nutrition oversight. While the state House shapes a 20 billion dollar annual state budget that decides how much North Carolina should [...]

How Much Will the Common Core Cost? States face key spending decisions as they implement the Common Core State Standards, and a new study finds that they could save about $927 million-or spend as much as $8.3 billion-depending on the approaches they choose in three vital areas: curriculum materials, tests, and professional development. The report [...]

Professor Teams With Elementary School to Build Lego Robots Richard Cassady, industrial engineering professor in the College of Engineering at the University of Arkansas, formed a FIRST Lego League team at Bernice Young Elementary School in Springdale. The YOUNGlings team is made up of one third grader, four fourth graders (one is Cassady’s son) and [...]

Teacher Sues School District A Fayetteville High School teacher sued the school district Tuesday claiming breach of contract because administrators want him to take anger management classes. Ken Swindle, a Rogers attorney, filed the lawsuit in Washington County Circuit Court on behalf of Tim Hollis, debate and forensics teacher. The suit names the district and [...]

Professor Teams With Elementary School to Build Lego Robots Richard Cassady, industrial engineering professor in the College of Engineering at the University of Arkansas, formed a FIRST Lego League team at Bernice Young Elementary School in Springdale. The YOUNGlings team is made up of one third grader, four fourth graders (one is Cassady’s son) and [...]

Pine Bluff School Board Fires Superintendent The Pine Bluff School Board voted to fire Superintendent Jerry Payne on Tuesday, repeating previous votes to end his employment after less than a year at the district. The 6-0 vote followed a six-hour public hearing during which Payne and his attorney, Keith Billingsley, disputed each item in a [...]

Judge Finalizes NLR District’s Unitary Status U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr., acting on the directions of a federal appeals court, declared the North Little Rock School District unitary and released from any further supervision of its desegregation efforts by federal officials. Marshall’s two-paragraph order was a procedural step necessary after a three-judge panel [...]