Multimedia

Special education teacher Elizabeth Rosenberry, right, holds hands with student Zachary Zayas in an effort to make eye contact with him, at PS4Q in the borough of Queens, N.Y. Rosenberry starts the class by engaging each student individually, while demonstrating to the other students how to make eye contact. Much effort is devoted to getting students to become socially engage with each other. New York City’s district 75, in conjunction with the Urban Arts Partnership, received a five-year, $4.6 million i3 grant in 2010 to implement an arts-integration professional-development program, known as Everyday Arts for Special Education (EASE). Through the program, teachers are mentored by teaching artists and receive ongoing, in-class support. A researcher from Teachers’ College says there’s evidence EASE has helped improve students’ academic, socialization, and communication skills.

Diana Marcus, a 5th grade teacher and president of Burlington Educators Association, sets up the computer lab at the Marshall Simonds Middle School in Burlington, Mass., where teachers from the Burlington school district sampled the PARCC field test. The field tests for PARCC and Smarter Balanced began in March, marking an assessment experiment of unprecedented scope.

Dashawn Smith, 6, left, looks over at his friend Malachi Davis, 10, as he hangs off of a fence outside of their apartment building while waiting for a bus to an after-care program. District of Columbia officials erected a prison-grade iron fence around the Potomac Gardens public housing complex in the early 1990s to keep out drug dealers and other criminals. At the time, the fence stirred an emotional reaction from residents, who said it made them feel further separated from the surrounding neighborhood.

Josina Reaves: A high school teacher at Poly Prep in Dyker Heights in Brooklyn. How do you feel right now? Exhausted. What was the highlight of your day? I read some fantastic student poems; some were really thoughtful, well done, and revealing.