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Long before there were federally funded turnaround schools, Nyree Dixon was turning around Brooklyns P.S. 12. When she became the Brownsville schools principal in 2006, barely a fifth of the elementary school’s students were passing state exams and the school was being considered for closure.

Since then, P.S. 12 has seen a jump in test scores and has stayed off the citys list of schools on the chopping block. Dixon attributes the improvement to changes in the school’s culture and instructional practices.

She joined Deidre DeAngelis, principal of New Dorp High School on Staten Island, on a panel during the conference on alternatives to school closures that several advocacy groups organized Saturday. The pair discussed the strategies they used to help their once-failing schools stay open and, in New Dorps case, turn into a model of successful school improvement for the city and federal education departments.

Those strategies — adding tutoring, offering more teacher training, connecting students and teachers, and engaging families — predate the structural and human capital changes the Obama administration has mandated for failing schools. They su

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PROVIDENCE — Installation of the new FieldTurf athletic field at La Salle Academy has been delayed for about a week because the blades of synthetic grass were the incorrect length.

The blades were 2.2 inches high instead of the required 2.5 inches.

La Salle officials are hoping the football/soccer/lacrosse field will be installed and lined in time for the opening of the Interscholastic League season in three weeks. They are trying to arrange for alternate sites for pre-season practice, which starts on Monday for sports other than football.

The football team has been practicing this week at the Dan Duquette Sports Academy in Hinsdale, Mass.

The former Giles HS star is gunning for the starting placekicking job at Virginia Tech.  

   Former Giles High School star Cody Journell started thinking about the next level–and beyond–years ago.  Journell spent time working with Doug Blevins, a former NFL kicking coach who has refined the skills of NFL talent like Adam Vinatieri and Shayne Graham. The work led to a scholarship offer from Virginia Tech, and now the Redshirt sophomore is poised to become the Hokies starting placekicker.

   An interesting local sidenote has former rival Trey Gresh serving as Journell’s holder. The two dueled in some epic Giles vs Blacksburg battles in the prep ranks. One of those included Journell hitting a 54 yard field goal.  Cody explained that the two have played AAU basketball together, and they are now teammates and friends.  Coach Frank Beamer says Journell has been consistent and done a solid job thusfar in the fall camp.

From South Carolina - The Post and Courier, reports that according to a new report by the South Carolina Policy Council, online learning is not just the future of public education, it is one of the most dynamic forces in education today. 

Imagine a public education system able to provide access to high-quality instruction, regardless of where a student lives. Imagine schools able to give individualized instruction to potential dropouts. Or course offerings that encourage students to master their studies, instead of simply show up for class. In fact, this vision for the states public school system already exists; its called online learning.

According to a new report by the South Carolina Policy Council, online learning is not just the future of public education, it is one of the most dynamic forces in education today.

As such, it represents a way our schools can move beyond many of the traditional limitations of a brick-and-mortar classroom and connect with students on a one-to-one basis.

Online learning allows students to take courses unavailable at their local school, resolve scheduling conflicts, and retake classes in order to graduate on time.

And these goals are accomplished without having to build more brick-and-mortar schools. I

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I know firsthand how quickly that beautiful little baby in the bassinet turns into a teenager as evidenced by my past posts in the thinktanK. The childhood years before the teenage period are so fleeting and so precious, that it seems to me like they should be preserved and cherished.   I’m confused when I see parents who seem to be rushing the process – with little girls in particular.   It baffled me when my oldest was turning eight and I first heard the term “tween.”  “Oh, she’s a tween now; she’s not a little girl,” a neighbor said to me one day.    I looked at my daughter, and she sure still looked like a little girl to me.   We then began to enter a whole new phase with spa-themed birthday parties and friends wearing clothes that looked like smaller versions of more mature styles.  

This tween label was invented by marketers, not developmental psychologists, and with the nonstop onslaught of marketing to the tween demographic, it is adding another degree of difficulty to the already amazingly complex job of parenting.   In the book, Shrinking Girlhood, co-author Lyn Brown, an education professor at Colby College, states that, “It feels like the boundary between childhood and adolescence has eroded. There isnt really a childho

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