INGLEWOOD, Calif.—In the back of a tenth-grade geometry classroom on a recent morning at Washington Preparatory High School, nine miles southeast of Los Angeles, Landon Yurica and Alycia Jones bent over the papers in front of them. At 23 and 24, respectively, the two could almost blend in as students as they tried the assignment [...]

NORTHRIDGE, Calif.— It took less than a minute for Mario Martinez to finish the first six questions of the algebra exam that his professor, Ivan Cheng, had just handed to him. The high school-level test was supposed to be a good example of an exam, so that the graduate students in Cheng’s math methods course [...]

NORTHRIDGE, Calif.—On a recent afternoon at California State University, Northridge, Nancy Prosenjak was attempting to quiet the graduate students spread out across conference tables in the back of her classroom. She was still missing nearly a third of the class, but she was eager to debrief with her students about their first day of student [...]

After accepting a job to teach science at Potts Camp School in rural Marshall County, Charlie Sisk began looking for housing. A science graduate of the University of Colorado, the first-year teacher was eager to begin working in the county, one the state had identified as a critical needs area lacking teachers. Joining with other [...]

TUPELO, Miss. – On a recent morning at Lawndale Elementary School, Assistant Principal Ian Shumpert was immersed in a third-grade language lesson, taking careful notes on his iPad. He was there to conduct an observation of one of his teachers, a process Shumpert said has become much easier since the school switched to an electronic [...]

Lawmakers in Mississippi passed legislation on Wednesday that will expand charter schools in the state, a victory for supporters who have made five attempts in five years to change the state’s current charter school law. The bill would allow the publicly-funded, privately-run schools to open in low-performing districts, and would give school boards in high-performing [...]

Mississippi is one step closer to passing sweeping education reforms that could, for the first time, bring state-funded pre-k to the state. On Wednesday, the House and Senate passed legislation that would provide $3 million to partially fund voluntary preschool programs for 4-year-olds beginning in the 2014-15 school year. Advocates of early education in the [...]

GULFPORT, Miss. — On a recent Friday morning in the gym at Gaston Point Elementary School, Tracy Jackson was growing impatient. It was the monthly awards assembly, a morning dedicated to recognizing students who were excelling in school, but several students were hesitant to get up and accept their awards. Jackson knew exactly why. “They [...]

PASCAGOULA, Miss. — Rosie Corn barely remembers the few years she spent in school before her mother pulled her out. It was the mid-1940s, and she was only through the first half of fifth grade. While her father worked on the family farm and her mother served food in a local hospital’s cafeteria, Corn spent [...]

JACKSON, Miss. - Mississippi is the only state in the South that does not fund preschool. That may change this spring if the legislature passes one of two bills to subsidize select programs. But Mississippi is likely to remain an outlier among southern states – as the legislation (HB781 and SB2395) won’t give limited preschool seats to needy [...]