Calif. voters approve $9 billion school bond

California voters have approved Proposition 51, a $9 billion bond for school construction projects across the state. State funding to help finance repairs and new school facilities across California had run dry, and Proposition 51 will refill the pot. Read more>>

The State Question 779 proposal would have increased Oklahoma’s sales tax by one penny on the dollar, which would then be distributed to K12, career and technical, and higher education programs. Stipulated in the state question is that a minimum $5,000 would go toward a salary increase for public school teachers, among other things. Read more>>

University of Texas (UT) leaders are hoping to help high school students prepare for the rigors of college courses through its pilot Texas MicroMajor program with Austin ISD. To earn a TEXAS MicroMajor, high school students must take two UT Austin On-Ramp courses and another two AP courses in their specific field of interest to prepare. Read more>>

Matt Zalaznick

Not long ago, few of us were talking about social-emotional learning or makerspaces—now, many districts use the latter tool to teach the former. Please follow the link to forecast what little-known issue, initiative or technology will dominate classrooms three, five and 10 years from now. Select predictions will appear in the January edition of District Administration. Read more>>

For the second time in four years, a political newcomer has unexpectedly triumphed over the incumbent in the race for Indiana state superintendent. Republican Jennifer McCormick, a longtime educator and superintendent from Yorktown, defeated incumbent Democrat Glenda Ritz. Read more>>

After months of back and forth, the Bay District School Board has approved a policy that will require all district volunteers who spend time with students in an unsupervised capacity to pass a background check. Read more>>

In New York City, where public education is profoundly segregated by race and income, the anger and dismay over a plan to diversify a couple of elementary schools on the Upper West Side of Manhattan are not terribly unusual. Few issues get the city more riled than battles over housing and schools, complicated by old injustices and deep divisions of ethnicity and class. Read more>>

Although Massachusetts voters rejected the expansion of the charter school cap, the debate has raised issues that lawmakers may be pressed to reconsider. How should the state improve failing school districts? Do changes need to be made to a funding formula to provide more money for all schools? Should the charter cap be lifted at all? Read more>>

Constitutional amendments usually pass without much of a fight in Georgia, but the well-funded campaign to put the state in the business of fixing failing schools was confronted by a rebellion with even more money. More than $7 million, an unheard of sum for a constitutional amendment, armed the battle over Gov. Nathan Deal’s Opportunity School District. Read more>>

Measured Progress will provide formative assessment resources for Boston’s K12 public schools. Customized assessments, paced to their curriculum, will be constructed for grades 3–12 in English language arts and mathematics. The tests will be administered three times during the school year in order to evaluate student progress. Read more>>

Dropbox Education is now available to help K12 and higher education schools to more easily and securely share and collaborate data across the organization. The solution unites devices, apps and offices, letting employees easily work with each other and external partners. Read more>>

Kandoolu Learning Navigator provides pre-built questions to create quick quizzes for math in grades 3-8. It allows teachers to view student progress, tackle misconceptions and offer further differentiation for students. Kandoolu then assigns a variety of practice activities to reinforce key concepts. Additional math and English language arts modules will be released in 2017. Read more>>

It was a win for the New Albany-Floyd County Schools, raking in 53 percent approval for an $87 million referendum. The plan includes construction projects at nine schools throughout the district. Read more>>

Voters in the Boston suburb of Somerville have approved a plan to build the state’s most expensive school. Residents overwhelmingly approved a temporary property tax increase to fund more than $130 million of the city’s estimated $137 million share of the more than quarter-billion dollar high school. Read more>>

East Prairie School District 73 voters in Skokie approved a referendum that will allow the district to build a new school by moving forward on a $47 million bond issue. Read more>>

Voters approved the divisive $152 million school bond that has divided the North Carolina county’s board of education and board of commissioners. The comprehensive project directs funds to each of the county’s 19 schools. All of the county’s schools save one are expected to exceed their maximum capacities in the next three to five years. Read more>>