Fifteen years ago the report A Nation at Risk by the National Commission on Excellence in Education began an era of education reform. A number of other states have had diploma requirements for a long time. In 1999, California passed a law requiring passing an exit examination as a condition of receiving a high school diploma. Yet the idea is new to Californians. Read more

Are you humming the Alphabet Song as you go to sleep at night? If you have a pre-school child, the answer may be, "Not yet." Read more

PARENTS: Any idea how many measurements you actually make as you go through your day? You may not actually get out the measuring tools. But a lot of things you do depend on what you already know. Read more

First, what do the test names mean? The Secondary School Admission Test is often required by private high schools. It tests reasoning ability in language and in mathematics. The subsections in the verbal portion include vocabulary, grammar, reading comprehension, spelling, and analogy. The math portion includes exponents, percentages, fractions, decimals, solving simple algebraic problems, and calculating the area of plane figures like triangles, circles, parallelograms, and trapezoids. There are also two kinds of word problems: those which calculate rate, time, and distance; and those which calculate the number of work hours a specific task will require. It is a two-hour test. Read more

A few items of important news for Special Education families. Read more