DES MOINES — Bipartisan negotiators agreed Wednesday to spend $897.7 million on public education next year, but question marks remain on key proposals related to education reform. The education appropriations bill covers spending for the department of education, the state’s three public universities, its special schools and a host of other programs. State aid for [...]

IOWA CITY – The City Council Tuesday night OK’d a grant application that would provide money to put armed police officers in secondary schools in the Iowa City Community School District. The intent is to hire two new police officers to serve as what are known as school resource officers in the district’s three high [...]

Jason Kline will officially become Kennedy High School’s new principal on Monday, July 1. The Cedar Rapids Community School District school board approved the hire during its Monday meeting. Kline, assistant principal at Myers Park High School in Charlotte, N.C., will earn a $132,000 salary to take over for Mary Wilcynski, who is retiring from [...]

Administrators in the Cedar Rapids Community School District had a message for school board members on Monday: it’s time to play catch-up. Executive Director of Business Services Steve Graham and Rob Kleinsmith, buildings and grounds manager, presented options for funding either a $5 million or an $8.5 million enhanced operations and maintenance plan designed to [...]

IOWA CITY — University of Iowa President Sally Mason ranked in the top 40 nationally among public university presidents for her total compensation in Fiscal Year 2012, according to a new annual study from the Chronicle of Higher Education. One spot on the study lists Mason as 38th for pay, and another spot on the [...]

When it comes to education in Iowa, the issue of diversity is quite gray, especially as the state’s public school student population continues to evolve. North Liberty resident Jessi Williams has a first-grader at Penn Elementary School in the Iowa City Community School District who is eligible for reduced-price lunches. That makes her family a [...]

This fall, faculty at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine are planning to implement a curriculum redesign, which in part will place more opportunities for creative writing and reflection in front of all students. College leaders are hopeful this heightened focus on the humanities will lead to graduating more well-rounded physicians. On May [...]

DES MOINES — Teachers who teach teachers will likely see changes in what they’re requiring of their students and what their deans require of them after a near-unanimous vote Thursday by the Iowa State Board of Education. Iowa is on the front lines of the push for national education standards, whether it’s adoption of a [...]

A former power company executive says several people have urged him to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Sen. Tom Harkin, but he’d rather talk about education. Mark Jacobs used to be at the helm of Reliant Energy, but now he’s the founder and sole funder of Reaching Higher Iowa, a group [...]

The Iowa City Police Department and school district are discussing the possibility of adding a “community police presence” in secondary schools. Superintendent Steve Murley said the district and police are carefully considering adding one or two officers to work in the district’s six middle and high school buildings on a full-time basis. “We are really [...]