Eleven years ago, the San Jose school district began requiring all students to pass the classes necessary for admission to the state university systems. Educators elsewhere watched with enthusiasm as early results showed remarkable success. But San Jose Unified has quietly acknowledged that the district overstated its accomplishments. And a Times analysis of the district’s [...]

A report released Tuesday aims to debunk claims that the United States lags substantially behind the international competition in education. The study, released by the Stanford Graduate School of Education and the Economic Policy Institute, argues that looking only at the United States’ average score on international exams is problematic and can lead to unwarranted [...]

School districts around the country are worrying over stalled negotiations to avert the “fiscal cliff” at the end of the month, which could result in the loss of more than 8 percent of their federal funding. Education advocates and  lobbyists, including for the two national teachers unions, are clamoring for a deal – specifically one [...]

Schools are supposed to be sanctuaries. That refrain has been echoing around the country following Friday’s massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., where a gunman shot his way into the building and murdered 20 children and six adults before taking his own life. “I live between the Sandy Hook Elementary School and [...]

East Asian countries continued their dominance in international test results released Tuesday. The United States scored better than the majority of countries in all subjects, but failed to crack the top 10 in most subjects. Singapore was at or near the top of the pack in all the tests, while Finland slipped slightly from its [...]

Florida released preliminary results of its recently revamped teacher evaluations from the 2011-2012 school year Wednesday. There was variation among districts, but statewide more than 2 percent of teachers were rated poorly, compared to less than 1 percent in years prior.

As the United States focuses more on using tests as a means of holding educators and school districts accountable, Finland—which is one of the top performers on international tests—has gone in the opposite direction. In the U.S., states give annual high-stakes exams that determine whether schools must undergo reforms, in some cases whether students can [...]

Billions of dollars are spent annually for on-the-job teacher training. Often, schools hire outside contractors to run workshops on teaching strategies, new policies like the Common Core State Standards, and—increasingly—how to use technology in the classroom. But one Buffalo technology teacher has found a much cheaper way to train his colleagues in all things digital. [...]

President Barack Obama’s re-election on Tuesday—along with Democratic victories in key states—marked a reprieve for teachers unions after a difficult year of political attacks and shrinking membership. The defeat of Indiana’s Republican superintendent of public instruction, Tony Bennett, combined with labor-friendly results on a series of ballot initiatives, demonstrates the continuing strength of unions, said [...]

President Barack Obama’s victory on Tuesday gives him a chance to build on the education policies he has pushed since 2009 and ensures that the federal government’s role in education will not diminish over the next four years. In his victory speech, he promised to expand “access to the best schools and best teachers” and [...]