Word: public-schools
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...filled a downtown Detroit courtroom for the sentencing of a 19-year-old ninth-grade dropout caught breaking into a public school, apparently to steal computers. The hearing's main attraction was not the guilty man or the judge but Robert Bobb, the state-appointed emergency financial manager of Detroit's public schools. In the last six months of 2009, Bobb told the court, nearly 500 computers were stolen from schools, costing his system some $600,000. "The Detroit public-school system isn't an electronics store," he said...
...Denver public-school system, which for more than a year has been utilizing such a growth model, is one of the first districts to adopt school turnaround plans that mimic those favored by the Education Department. On Nov. 30, the city's school board approved measures that would have the district employ each of the four turnaround strategies at various schools across the district. "We can't pretend that modest changes to the status quo are going to deliver significantly different results," says Denver superintendent Tom Boasberg, who has been on the job for a year since replacing former superintendent...
...spend much time with teenagers to know that the average adolescent would rather devote an afternoon to sitting in front of the TV, computer or video-game console than working out in a gym. And in recent years, as physical-education classes have been progressively cut from cash-strapped public-school curriculums, teens have had even more time to lounge, slouch, hang out or do anything but break a sweat...
...driving across city lines to attend classes. Seniors are required to spend every Wednesday morning on a service project in the city. And students in all grades (7 through 12) volunteer their time for no credit. Last year they spent more than 3,500 hours in activities from tutoring public-school kids to delivering food to disabled residents. "We made a commitment to stay in the city," says Holly Bennetts, the school's full-time service director. "We have a responsibility to make it better." (See pictures of a diverse group of American teens...
...unions agreeing to allow standardized testing to be a factor in teacher evaluation so long as it is not used as grounds for firing. While this may lead to bad teachers simply cycling through the worst schools, this compromise is leagues better than the stagnation so characteristic of public-school policy. It is an encouraging sign that Race to the Top is already working before even a single dollar has been spent...