Education

New Hampshire has missed out on another round funding in the federal education grant program Race to the Top. The state was hoping for $37.5 million dollars to improve pre-k and early childhood education programs.

Many schools in New Hampshire enhanced their security in response to the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. a year ago.

Those new measures come at a big cost to school districts.

And they’re forcing school officials to decide what type of security works for their buildings and their communities.

Even the head of Nashua’s school district needs clearance before he’s allowed into any of the city’s 17 schools.

“Hi, Mr. Conrad. Left door,” the secretary inside Elm Street Middle School says over the intercom.

Most of today’s students and their parents are used to report cards based on the letters A through F. But a new grading system is taking root in schools across the country that seeks to give parents a lot more information. Standards based grading breaks classes down to specific skills students have mastered.

A is good, F is bad. But what about E, M, IP, and LP?

Those are the grades that kids in Sanborn High School in Kingston get. They stand for exceeding, meeting, in-progress, and limited progress.

A report released this week by the Project on Student Debt shows average student debt among New Hampshire’s college graduates increased slightly last year.

The state adopted the Common Core Standards in 2010 with little controversy at the time. But you wouldn’t know that by the tone of a legislative forum Tuesday morning.  The controversy over the Common Core State Standards has made its way to the New Hampshire legislature. This session lawmakers will be asked to consider pulling the plug on the state’s new educational goalposts.

The hall was packed with conservative activists who called the forum one-sided.

Diane Ravitch, one of the nation's loudest voices against efforts by recent presidents to reform American education, says teachers should be able to make changes to the new Common Core State Standards that New Hampshire schools are implementing now.

Pinkerton Academy social studies teacher Joe Lee is the New Hampshire Teacher of the Year.

Pinkerton Academy in Derry is considering a unified dress code, which would require students to wear business casual attire.

The State Department of Education recognized 38 high performing New Hampshire schools Tuesday. The schools were highlighted for improved test scores, and innovative practices.

New Hampshire officials are working on an application for a federal Race to the Top Grant for Early Childhood Education. If the state is selected in this round, it could receive up to $37.5 million dollars to support initiatives to improve childcare and preschool programs all over the state. While there is growing interest in pre-k issues the challenges standing in the way of better or more affordable childcare are daunting.

The state Board of Education has given the green light for three new charter schools to open in New Hampshire.

Their approval was made possible after the Legislature set aside $3.4 million in the state budget for new charter schools.

The Gate City Charter School for the Arts was one of the schools to get approval from the board at a meeting on Thursday.

The school is planned for Nashua and will offer an arts-focused curriculum, starting with grades K through 4. It will open next fall.

The new school superintendent in Manchester says a recent audit taking the school district to task in several areas should be used as a blueprint to help address those is

  Last week New Hampshire at long last was granted a waiver from the Bush-era education reform law, No Child Left Behind (NCLB). The federal government first announced the waivers in 2011 because of congressional inaction to reform No Child Left Behind. New Hampshire was the 39th state to be granted one.

Interest rates on newly issued subsidized Stafford loans doubled on Monday.

The New Hampshire Higher Education Assistance Foundation has been working with families to help them understand what that means when planning for college.

As of July 1, the interest rate jumps from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent.

Tara Payne is vice president of the Center for College Planning.

She says her concern is that students who qualify for subsidized federal loans are the ones with the greatest need.

The University System of New Hampshire Board of Trustees voted Friday to freeze tuition for in-state students for the next two years.

The move comes after lawmakers agreed to substantially restore funding cuts made to the system in the last budget.

The tuition freeze for in-state students marks the first time in 25 years the cost of attending University System of New Hampshire schools will not rise.

After the Legislature cut support for higher education in half in the last budget, tuition rose by 9 percent in 2011 and by another 6 percent last year.

The U.S. Department of Education has approved New Hampshire’s application for a waiver from certain requirements of the No Child Left Behind law.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan informed state officials today that their application had been accepted.

The waiver frees the state from ten different sections of the controversial education law, which calls for universal math and English proficiency by 2014.