Sleepless No More In Seattle — Later School Start Time Pays Off For Teens

Across the country, an improving economy has pulled teachers and potential teachers away from the profession, creating a growing national shortage. Leaders at Elmhurst Community Prep managed not only to completely staff the school by early June, but to avoid taking on anyone who was not fully certified.

Can we improve the methods we use to teach math in schools — so that everyone develops proficiency? A grade-school math program is changing how children learn based on the assumption that all children can achieve a high level of understanding.

For-profit companies are making good private schools available even to Africa’s poor. They can do it – and can do it on an enormous scale – by hiring neighborhood residents to teach, and scripting out every word of every lesson on an e-reader.

Cities save money and help kids by connecting them with diploma programs. In Washington, iGrad is helping students do just this – and seeing results.

To decrease the chance of formerly incarcerated individuals relapsing and ending up back in the prison system, the J.F. Ingram State Technical College in Alabama offers correctional education and vocational programs. This training has aided those incarcerated with life skills for after their release, decreasing the likelihood that they will relapse and increasing the likelihood that they will better adjust to their community.

When adults want to return to school, they face many challenges including the experience of long waitlists for classes, and poor relevance to the job skills they need for future employment. The Washington state community college system has started a program known as Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training (I-BEST) that instead teaches in two parts: academic content and basic soft skills.

A girls camp in West Virginia and a residential program in Kentucky help Appalachian women build self esteem and enable them to turn their life around through mentoring, stem classes, and job counseling.

Access Code is a nonprofit in New York that gives young adults, particularly those from minority groups, instruction and resources to learn coding. This education promotes greater access to lucrative careers in the world of technology.

Cabarrus County’s Project Re-entry gives those experiencing incarceration a chance at an education and self-reflection. The program has shown such success that it is being expanded to other detention centers in the county. Those who take part are able to take classes – all taught by volunteers – like literacy and religious studies, or choose to enroll in programs like Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous.

PowerMyLearning, a program that any student, parent, or teacher can use for free, helps students take ownership of their own learning. When most attention is being placed on teacher effectiveness, this program redirects those efforts toward students.