Special Reports

Special Report Learning the Digital Way

Schools are learning hard lessons about the difficulties of putting in place 1-to-1 computing programs and digital curricula initiatives meant to encourage innovation and fuel academic growth.

June 10, 2015

The Miami-Dade school system put the brakes on a 1-to-1 computing effort to avoid setbacks experienced by other districts. Above, Coral Gables freshmen Andrea Urieles, right, and Samantha Palacios work together on a tablet during a history class.

Special Report Next Steps

While the nation's graduation rate has hit another historic high, prospects are more mixed for children and youths with disabilities, according to Diplomas Count 2015.

June 4, 2015

Blake Yee, center, watches his MY VOICE presentation with his father, Steven Yee, and mother, Rolyn Yee, at the Supported Training Experiences Post Secondary (STEPS) building in Naperville, Ill., along with Kate Bruno, far left, a case manager and support teacher in the program. As part of the program, youths with disabilities prepare a multimedia presentation to showcase their post-graduation plans.

Special Report Building Literacy Skills

This special report takes a wide-ranging look at new efforts to address the challenges of early-grades reading instruction.

May 13, 2015

Vada Mooney, left, and Jakhai Bland-Jenious, both 4, play literacy games on tablet computers at Pine Ridge Prep in Topeka, Kan., part of a free program for students in public housing.

Special Report Blended Learning

This report examines some of the most intractable challenges schools face in trying to use technology to improve teaching and learning—and how K-12 systems are attempting to clear those hurdles.

April 13, 2015

Kim S. Burke, the principal at J.C. Nalle Elementary School in the District of Columbia, shows enthusiasm during an open house to explain blended learning software to teachers and leaders from other schools, as Kevin Wenzel, blended learning specialist for the school system, watches.

Special Report The Chief Academic Officer's Evolving Role

This special report examines the challenges CAOs are facing in school districts across the country and how they are working to improve academics in the age of common standards and digital teaching and learning. It features findings from an exclusive survey of district leaders.

March 18, 2015

During a joint visit to Mill Creek Middle School in the Kent, Wash., district, Thuan Nguyen, right, and Louanne Decker discuss the district’s blended learning options. Mr. Nguyen is the assistant superintendent and chief digital strategy officer, and Ms. Decker is the district’s chief academic and innovation officer.

Special Report Transforming Teachers' Roles

February 18, 2015

Teaching Ambassador Fellow Emily Davis, center, helps out a group attending the Teach to Lead summit in Boston. Other summits occurred in Louisville, Ky., and Denver.

Special Report Shaping Strong School Leaders

This special report examines how educators and policymakers are cultivating principals who can be the kind of political, managerial, and instructional leaders the profession now demands.

January 21, 2015

Elizabeth Valerio, a KIPP assistant principal, visits a 6th grade math class at KIPP Rise Academy in Newark, N.J. She is training to become the principal of one of the network's schools in St. Louis next fall.

Quality Counts Special Report Quality Counts 2015: Preparing to Launch

Quality Counts is Education Week's annual report on state-level efforts to improve public education. This 19th edition of the report delves into early-childhood education.

January 2, 2015

Special Report Making Sense of the Math

This special report details the complex challenges schools and teachers face as they work toward implementing the new math standards.

November 12, 2014

Sixth graders at KIPP Washington Heights Middle School in New York solve problems at a whiteboard in teacher Silvestre Arcos’ computation class. In transitioning to the common-core standards, Mr. Arcos has focused on his English-learners’ language needs.

Special Report Taking Stock of Personalized Learning

This report tackles the issue of personalized learning, arguably one of the hottest topics in education this year, and an educational concept that raises all kinds of questions and concerns about how students should learn in the digital age.

October 22, 2014

Kayla-Meeks Cook, a 6th grader, gets help from teacher John Williams at Whittemore Park Middle School in Conway, S.C. The students were using their iPads to pick out recipes and calculate ingredients as part of a skills task.

James Jason Lee for Education Week

Special Report Piecing Together a Smart LMS Strategy

This special report aims to give district leaders a better sense of what it takes to piece together a smart strategy for learning management systems.

October 7, 2014

Brooke T. Webb, a teacher at Lanier High School in Gwinett County, Ga., trains a group of fellow Lanier educators who are interested in implementing eClass, an online educational platform used for teachers and students to share work, engage in class discussions, take tests, receive grades, and accomplish other tasks.

Special Report Getting Personal

Faced with tougher state standards and new research on how children learn, more schools and districts have plunged into variants of personalized learning, or approaches to instruction that seek to better cater to students' individual learning needs. This special report explores that growing interest in personalized learning, looking at how related instructional initiatives (many of which are costly and technologically intensive) are playing out in the classroom and what solutions and challenges they pose for teachers and schools.

June 18, 2014

To help K-12 educators and policymakers make better sense of this approach, Education Week looked at the experiences of schools such as Belmont-Cragin Elementary in Chicago, where students like 13-year old Llocelin Rivera receive tailored instruction in the hopes of boosting performance and closing achievement gaps.