In Etown: Should third-graders share a building with eighth-graders?

ELIZABETHTOWN — An Elizabethtown Independent Schools committee has turned in its report about a possible restructuring of the district’s schools, but it probably will be awhile before it receives a grade...

...The district is contemplating using a “school centers” approach in its schools’ grade configurations. Along with a planned building for preschool and kindergarteners, a possible “center” approach would place first- and second-graders in the Helmwood Heights Elementary building, and third- through eighth-graders on the Morningside Elementary/T.K. Stone Middle schools campus.

Elizabethtown High School’s structure would remain the same. This is one variation on the center model other districts have used.No matter how schools are configured, the preschool and kindergarten center already is in EIS’ facility plan, which lays out all potential plans for construction and renovation in the district...

This from the News-Enterprise.

No Child Left Behind leaves schools in a bind

Law has pushed about 2,300 schools into the muddy waters of restructuring

NEW YORK - The scarlet letter in education these days is an "R." It stands for restructuring — the purgatory that schools are pushed into if they fail to meet testing goals for six straight years under the No Child Left Behind law.

Nationwide, about 2,300 schools are either in restructuring or are a year away and planning for such drastic action as firing the principal and moving many of the teachers, according to a database provided to The Associated Press by the Education Department. Those schools are being warily eyed by educators elsewhere as the law's consequences begin to hit home.

Schools fall into this category after smaller changes, such as offering tutoring, fall short. The effort is supposed to amount to a major makeover, and it has created a sense of urgency that in some schools verges on desperation.

This from MSNBC, Photo by Kevin Wolf / AP.