South Dakota schools go to a 4-day week

A recent article in the Detroit News discusses how a rural school district has decided to go to a four-day school week to reduce costs and deal with South Dakota's education budget cuts. Superintendent Larry Johnke said that the $50,000 savings will preserve a vocational education program that otherwise would have been scrapped. The downsizing comes as schools in some larger cities like Chicago, are moving in the opposite direction.

South Dakota to purposely miss NCLB benchmarks in 2011

According to a recent article, South Dakota officials plan to purposely miss the No Children Left Behind benchmarks to make a point that the legislation is unreasonable and needs to be rewritten. State officials have been asking for a rewrite of NCLB because without it, 85% of the schools will be considered "failing", according to Education Secretary Melody Schopp.

Schopp says the state is freezing this year's progress standards and will use the same benchmarks next year - so students won't be asked to make gains that are out of their reach.