As we’ve discussed at length elsewhere, educational video games have proliferated considerably in the past 20 years. From Quantum Leap to iPad apps, there are games across subject areas for every level. But of course, not all of these games are equally valuable – the preponderance of evidence from currentRead More

In March, an American educator was awarded the highest honor in teaching – the inaugural Varkey Foundation Global Teacher Prize, which some have called the “Nobel Prize of Teaching.” Nancie Atwell of Edgecomb, Maine, is the founder of the Center for Teaching and Learning, an independent private school. At theRead More

May 4-8 of this year marks the annual celebration of Teacher Appreciation Week. It can be tempting to brush this off as yet another commercialized greeting-card holiday – doesn’t everything have its own day or week nowadays? But the simple fact is that teachers really do deserve our appreciation, andRead More

Each year, Rice University‘s Boniuk Institute hosts a writing competition called Embracing Tolerance. The contest, open to high school students in the greater Houston area, encourages young people to think about and engage with the idea of religious tolerance and coexistence. The 2015 prompt asked students to consider the qualitiesRead More

Public school parents, take note – the Children at Risk scores for Greater Houston schools were made available yesterday. Children at Risk (CAR) is a Houston-based nonprofit which aims to improve the lives of Texas’ children – particularly disadvantaged children – through research, political activism, and collaborative action with otherRead More

The 2015 AP exams start on May 4, just one week from today. Is your teen ready? If your child is taking an AP exam this year, they’ll be studying a lot in the upcoming week (I hope). The advice contained in this guide will help them make the mostRead More

This week, HISD’s Barrick and Grissom elementary schools welcomed a special guest. Bess the Book Bus visited these schools, as it has visited countless others, to bring free books for the students. Access to books in the home is an important factor in fostering a love of reading, and studiesRead More

The newest school to be profiled on the Houston School Survey is Abercrombie Academy. Abercrombie Academy is a private, independent, coeducational elementary school. It is located in Spring, on its original campus off Theiss Mail Route Road. The school’s namesake founder, Cathy Abercrombie, opened the school in 1977. Her visionRead More

 A lesson from a third grade classroom has been making the rounds on social media this week. You’ve probably seen it – little notes in children’s handwriting, simple and powerful statements about students’ lives. Denver, CO teacher Kyle Schwartz, perceiving her students’ life experience to be significantly different from herRead More

Houston students benefit from a wealth of summer enrichment opportunities, including everything from test prep to day camp at the natural science museum. Today, we’d like to spotlight a summer program hosted by Rice University: the Tapia Math-Science Scholars Program. This is an all-costs-paid, one-month residential program in which risingRead More

A large portion of the STAAR tests, which are mandated for public school students in grades 3-12, will be administered next week for the elementary and middle school levels. Students in grades 3-8 will be tested in math. Students in grades 3-4 and 6-7 will be tested in reading, andRead More

For high school seniors and magnet school applicants, acceptance season is here. Universities have issued their  initial round of acceptance offers; students with offers from multiple schools have until May 1 to decide where they will attend. Meanwhile, in HISD, students were notified of their magnet admission status in mid-March;Read More

Houston is home to many elite private schools. And in its 2015 ranking of “The 50 Smartest Private Schools in the US,” Business Insider affirmed that two of Houston’s schools are among the very best in the nation. The Kinkaid School and St. John’s School are both known for theirRead More

Two weeks ago, the eleventh annual ExxonMobil Texas Science and Engineering Fair was held at UTSA. Each year, students from all over the state come to showcase research projects in the STEM fields. The event is open to students in grades 6-12 who compete and score well in a qualifying regionalRead More

Earlier this week, CBS New York reported that a Long Island senior, Harold Ekeh, had been accepted to all eight Ivy League schools. And over the past few days, reports have trickled in about four more students who also achieved the Ivy League sweep this year. This is a truly amazingRead More

The newest school to be profiled on the Houston School Survey is the High School for Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice (HSLECJ). HSLECJ was founded in 1981 by Dr. Judy Morris. The institution was originally designed to serve students interested in law enforcement careers and to encourage recruitment of more minoritiesRead More