Spending millions to guard against COVID-19 spread, district leaders also must convince parents school buildings are safe.

Writing in dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas said a lower court had disrupted state property tax revenue for schools and other government services.

A collection of stories from the previous week that you may have missed.

Teachers felt that iPads "provide no educational function in the classroom" and are often used to play games in class.

Middle and high schools in Maine are returning their iPads and switching back to laptops after a survey found that 88.5 percent of teachers and 74 percent of students in one district preferred laptops for schoolwork and instruction, reports the Lewiston-Auburn Sun Journal.

Gov. Paul LePage believes Maine has a glut of school superintendents, and he intends to pressure districts into consolidating administrations with the two-year budget he will propose in early 2017.

In five northern U.S. states, black students comprise more than a fifth of ELL enrollment.

This Quality Counts 2019 Highlights Report captures all the data you need to assess your state's performance on key educational outcomes.

The rocky shift to remote learning has exacerbated inequities for the nation's 5 million English-learners. An army of multilingual liaisons work round the clock to plug widening gaps.

This Quality Counts 2020 Highlights Report captures all the data you need to assess your state's performance on key educational outcomes.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit turns away claims of religious discrimination by families seeking to use Maine's "tuitioning" program.

Eliminating gifted programs all together is the wrong solution to fixing racial and economic imbalances, argues James R. Delisle.

The U.S. Department of Education's office for civil rights said that some students were placed in self-contained special education settings without an individualized justification for doing so.

Students at Bellevue Elementary in Syracuse, N.Y., spend an extra 70 minutes at school each day, and their principal says the extended school day has improved their academic performance.

This Quality Counts 2020 Highlights Report captures all the data you need to assess your state's performance on key educational outcomes.

Students returning to schools in Virginia and New York this fall will be required to participate in mental-health education as part of their health and physical education courses.

The state will be required to test all students using grade level tests, except for those with significant cognitive disabilities.

The New York state legislature passed a bill that would make the use of state test scores in these evaluations optional, leaving the decision up to districts and making it subject to collective bargaining.

It's hard to keep the coronavirus crisis in perspective, especially when that perspective keeps shifting, writes New York City teacher Colin Lieu.

Dez-Ann Romain, a Brooklyn principal, is believed to be the first full-time, front-line educator to die from COVID-19.

The days are a technology overload, mixed with the joy of seeing her students' faces and worry about her own family's health and safety, New York City teacher Ariel Sacks writes.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo pushed back on the Mayor Bill de Blasio's announcement, however, saying "no decision" had been made about reopening schools in New York City or elsewhere in the state.

More than half of all states have ordered schools closed for multiple weeks to help slow the pandemic.

A collection of articles you may have missed from the previous week.

Gov. Dave Heineman used part of his speech to blast the federal Affordable Care Act, saying its mandatory provisions will cost the state.

A Nebraska senator introduced a bill that would give teachers legal cover to physically restraint disruptive students, prompting a strong positive response from members of the state teachers' union.

A school cook in Nebraska was canned after he mixed kangaroo meat into chili made for students.

Fidelity is often seen as a bad word in school, but it doesn't have to be that way. In this guest blog by George Toman, the concept of fidelity is explained and defended.

U.S. Ed Secretary DeVos has approved plans for 46 states, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Still waiting: California, Florida, Oklahoma, and Utah.

This Quality Counts 2019 Highlights Report captures all the data you need to assess your state's performance on key educational outcomes.

This poem pays tribute to the more than 400 teachers, principals, bus drivers, custodians, and other staff members we have lost to the pandemic so far.

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is not famous for pressuring states into desired outcomes, but did put at least two states' Title I funding on "high-risk" status last year.

A former high school athletic standout and homecoming king, Pedro Garcia III “could connect with anybody,” no matter the language, said a teaching colleague in Cozad, Neb.

This Quality Counts 2020 Highlights Report captures all the data you need to assess your state's performance on key educational outcomes.