U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos on Wednesday visited a Kentucky high school that is recovering from a 2018 shooting to award additional grant money meant to aid its recovery efforts.

A little story out of Lexington, Ky., raises some big questions for K-12 districts to consider on how to handle ongoing murkiness over student privacy, open-records laws, and how candidates for school boards should best communicate with their constituents.

Many states have recently enacted laws or rules designed to ensure that teachers are well versed in evidence-based reading instruction. Here are some highlights.

This year's November elections—a preview to next year's nationwide showdowns—cast their own spotlight on education, a dynamic that played out most prominently in the Kentucky governor's race, where teachers organized to unseat a combative incumbent who'd sparred with them.

President Donald Trump has tapped Mark Schultz, a deputy commissioner of education in Nebraska, to serve as commissioner of the rehabilitation services administration at the Education Department.

A bill in Nebraska would require high school students to take a civics examination before graduating.

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.

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.

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

Nebraska's education department released an interactive instructional materials map last week, showing what curricula districts have adopted for English-language arts, math, and K-8 science.

"Educators are completely redesigning instructional delivery while constantly being thrown new rules. It's like 'flying the plane as you build it,'" says Maddie Fennell.

Alabama lawmakers passed a charter school law last year, becoming the 43rd state to adopt one.

Board members didn't act on a resolution to revoke Alabama's version of the Common Core State Standards.

Michael Sentance abruptly resigns less than a year after being hired to oversee Alabama's schools and as board members were preparing to decide his fate after a brutal evaluation.

Court-ordered school desegregation has been more successful in the South than in any other region of the country, but researchers have noted a new threat: the growing number of communities that are seceding from larger school districts to form their own.

State Board of Education members weighed in today about a proposal to eliminate their elected positions and replace the board with an appointed commission.

Many states have recently enacted laws or rules designed to ensure that teachers are well versed in evidence-based reading instruction. Here are some highlights.

The Maryland State Department of Education "inappropriately stored" personal information of 1.4 million students and more than 230,000 teachers, leaving them vulnerable to potential bad actors, according to an audit published earlier this month.

The state, which earned a B, saw its educational strength buoyed by strong performance in areas that measure socioeconomic factors that can affect the educational environment.

Chief technology officers are facing an unprecedented test of digital preparedness due to the coronavirus pandemic, struggling with shortfalls of available learning devices and huge Wi-Fi access challenges.

Maryland's legislature has proposed a unique way to fund schools and also wants to hold school districts more accountable for how they spend their money as part of a new funding formula.

Schools may have to continue closures in the fall if the coronavirus resurges, state schools chiefs in Maryland and Washington said. The warnings came the same week thata key federal official predicted schools would be able to reopen for the 2020-21 school year.

A task force is recommending that the state lowers the score required on the controversial national edTPA exam.

The city's prekindergarten program is approaching universal access, which was a campaign promise of Mayor Bill de Blasio, who convinced the state legislature to provide $300 million to help launch it.

To give districts more flexibility in the face of teacher shortages, New York's education department is proposing to modify its regulations on teacher certifications.

The two Upstate New York districts are venturing beyond the largely white region to tap a more diverse pool of educators.

New York state is considering adopting a new set of K-12 reading and math standards that differ somewhat from the Common Core State Standards, which have had rocky reception in the state since they went into place in 2010.

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.

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos railed against state constitutional prohibitions on public funds going to religious institutions in a speech to the Alfred E. Smith Foundation in New York City.

New York will require some districts next year to have their school-by-school spending amounts approved by the state, an effort to assure that state funds are being distributed as intended.

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.

Private schools in New York soon will be required to report suspected sexual abuse of students in their schools to law enforcement, bringing the independent schools under the same rules as public schools.

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.

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

Hopson became the interim superintendent in Shelby County, Tenn., in 2013 after the Memphis City School system merged with Shelby County schools. That merger then led six suburban communities to break away from the merged school system to form their own school districts.

Court-ordered school desegregation has been more successful in the South than in any other region of the country, but researchers have noted a new threat: the growing number of communities that are seceding from larger school districts to form their own.

Tupac Mosley overcame homelessness to graduate as valedictorian, writes Jonathan E. Collins, but there’s an overlooked part of his inspirational story: policy.

Many states have recently enacted laws or rules designed to ensure that teachers are well versed in evidence-based reading instruction. Here are some highlights.

The Tennessee department of education is proposing unsually comprehensive legislation that will require all current and new K-3 teachers, and those who train them, to know evidence-based reading instruction.

Two Republican legislators in Colorado have introduced a bill that would enact harsh consequences, including jail time, for teachers and teachers' unions who go on strike.

Teachers and other education advocates hope that tax-wary voters will be willing to approve an amendment that would pour more than $1.6 billion more into schools each year.