Every Student Succeeds unleashes school funding flexibility Paula Love The 2015 passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) reverses the trend of federal authority over K12 education. The new law returns state and local authority to levels that have not been seen in decades. One of biggest changes is that ESSA increases fund transferability for key federal programs. Read more>> VocabularySpellingCity and Words Their Way: optimal for word study Sponsored by VocabularySpellingCity.com VocabularySpellingCity, used with the Words Their Way educational program, transforms traditional word study into a more effective and deeply engaging experience for both teachers and students, two educators write in a recent whitepaper. Read more>> Can findings from one set of schools apply to others? Huffington Post Research in education is often criticized for trying to generalize from one set of schools to others. Every school is different, and findings from studies done elsewhere cannot be assumed to apply to a specific school or set of schools. But pretending that no school can learn from what was done in any other does not move us forward. Read more>> A costly, undiagnosed educational roadblock Sponsored by Learning Ally One in five students has dyslexia, the most common cause of reading, writing and spelling difficulties. When dyslexia isn’t diagnosed, students struggle with school, have higher dropout rates and don't reach their potential. Download and share our whitepaper on the seven common signs and strategies to address their needs. Read more>> America's not-so-broken education system The Atlantic American education has some obvious shortcomings. Even defenders of the schools can make long lists of things they’d like to change. But the root of the problem is not incompetent design, as is so frequently alleged. Nor is it stasis. Rather, it is the twofold challenge of complexity and scale. Read more>> Using the right technology can help make your board’s life easier Sponsored by BoardPaq In this day and age, transparency means easy electronic access to agendas, minutes, and a directory of school board members. BoardPaq’s recently enhanced “public access” feature helps school boards provide that information to constituents, parents, and any member of the public who cares about the decisions their community’s school board makes. Read more>> Ways to make Ohio's online charter schools more accountable The Plain Dealer The sad truth is that a combination of poor enforcement and too many loopholes mean there's little accountability for e-schools—and too many harsh consequences for students who wind up learning very little. There also are too few checks and balances on attendance figures for online learners. But this is not just an Ohio problem. Read more>> Education reformers can learn a lot from educational entrepreneurs U.S. News & World Report People hoping to improve the nation's education system could learn a lot from budding education entrepreneurs, who by and large were former teachers or had teachers on their teams. Rather than offering platitudes or infeasible plans, they looked to solve clearly articulated, discrete problems that are right in front of them. Read more>> | 