Shelby Joe, publisher of Thesis and Co-Founder of Piqosity.com, announced the launch of edTech Houston today. edTech Houston is a group for education entrepreneurs and educators looking to implement technology into their classrooms and curriculums. As an edtech entrepreneur, Joe was looking for a supportive community but was surprised to findRead More

Middle School students from western North Carolina weren’t allowed to sing the Star Spangled Banner at the National September 11 Memorial in Manhattan last week. Security guards told them that they weren’t allowed to but were not able to explain the reasoning. The memorial’s policy is that any public performersRead More

More than three million American students stress over the SAT and ACT college admissions tests every year. Tens of millions more take annual accountability tests in their public schools as required by federal law. These students now have a new tool in their arsenal to take on standardized tests. Piqosity,Read More

The equivalence of ages with grade levels is a fairly ingrained tradition in American education. If a friend tells you her son is five years old, it’s reasonable to assume that the child is in kindergarten; and if a teenager has just gotten her driver’s license, it’s a safe betRead More

Later this month and early next month, the class of 2015 will be graduating from high schools all over Texas. They will be one of the last classes to graduate under the existing graduation requirements. Students entering high school in 2014 and following years will graduate under the requirements ofRead 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

Finland has one of the top educational systems in the world. And now, it’s considering a major overhaul that administrators hope will make it even better. Teaching by subjects – a curriculum element so fundamental most of us take it for granted – is to be phased out and replacedRead More

Earlier this year, we told you about the Student Privacy Pledge which Google, Microsoft, and other major infotech companies signed in a gesture of goodwill toward keeping students’ data safe. The pledge was put forward as part of President Obama’s broader agenda on education technology, an agenda in which dataRead More

Former US Secretary of State and four-star Army general Colin Powell will speak at Rice University’s commencement address on Saturday, May 16th at 8:30am. “We are deeply honored to have such a respected national leader and extraordinary public servant as our commencement speaker,” Rice President David Leebron said. “We choseRead More

One of the most prevalent concerns in the modern American education system is literacy. Studies show that while most students can understand the face value of written words by third grade, only about one third of middle schoolers can truly comprehend written texts. A variety of strategic plans, teaching strategies,Read More

Two weeks ago, HISD Superintendent Terry Grier gave his annual State of the Schools address, in which he discussed strides the district has made in the past year and revealed plans to make further progress in the coming year. The most prominent announcements this year dealt with programs undergoing considerableRead More

Several months ago, we wrote about edX’s High School Initiative, a groundbreaking expansion into online APs, which will unveil comprehensive MOOCs for eight different AP courses (as well as other college-preparatory material) over the next year. Last month, in partnership with the Modern States Education Alliance, edX announced yet another significantRead More

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation annually awards millions in funding to education initiatives aimed at impacting both students and policy. One of the goals stated by the Gates Foundation in regards to education are to support innovation that can improve U.S. K-12 public schools and ensure that students graduateRead More

There are many things that we take for granted when thinking about K-12 education. Children have plenty of homework, and that’s good – it’s a critical learning tool. Right? And class size is a great talking point for selective schools, but  students can learn just as well in a largerRead More

In this age of electronic surveillance and the ever-present question of online privacy, many parents are particularly concerned about their children’s online presence – who can see them, who might be collecting data on them, and how might they be using that data? Large companies like Google have been theRead More

The Texas Education Agency published its annual Public Education Grant list which is used to rate which schools across the state require improvement. Houston ISD, the state’s largest district, topped the list with 86 different elementary, middle and high schools requiring improvement due to low test scores and other factors contributingRead More