Most states take a very hands-off approach to regulating home schooling, and some advocates worry that makes it attractive to neglectful and abusive parents.

While schools are closed to coronavirus, districts are putting together a patchwork of lessons for students to do at home. But districts’ expectations for what students can accomplish at home vary widely, according to parents.

Rather than adhering to a specific curriculum, families who "unschool" believe learning happens naturally and should be driven by a student's interests. Education Week spent a "school" day with the Matica family to see this decades-old approach to home schooling in action.

How can parents make sure their kids are still learning, carve out time for their own work, discover their inner teacher, and stay sane? Ed Week turned to the foremost experts for their pro tips: Home schooling parents.

In two-parent households, who's taking on the biggest role as schoolwork supervisor? It appears that the answer depends on who you ask.

At age 17, Nick D'Aloisio just sold Summly to Yahoo! for $30 Million. With technology increasingly penetrating our everyday lives, today's children grow up with computers in their blood: thus, this rise of the teenage entrepreneur is not fading anytime soon.

Concerned that schools don't notice or nurture business skills, nonprofits are using the humble lemonade stand to foster entrepreneurship.

As part of a proposal to reduce the federal government's bottom line, The Trump administration is asking Congress to cut $7 billion from a program that helps provide low-income children access health-care.

Three-fourths of children across the United States aren't getting the recommended physical activity per week, according to a report card released this month by the National Physical Activity Plan Alliance.

What can we do for students facing chronic poverty and other challenges? A lot more than we’re doing now, writes Tyrone C. Howard.

Infants and children younger than 19 are at greater risk of dying in the United States than in other industrialized nations, concludes a study of data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

To the list of problems caused by childhood lead exposure, Harvard University researchers add one more: teenage delinquency.

Having a bachelor's degree, a top-notch grade point average, and a relatively high level of work experience actually reduce the chance that a job applicant will be called in for an interview with a child-care provider, concludes new research by Kent State and Arizona State universities.

Poor feedback, ineffective guidance and instructions, and lack of adaptivity are some of the key shortcomings identified by researchers in a study of 171 popular mobile learning apps for 3-5 year olds.

New data show that a growing percentage of children, especially those from well-off households, attend center-based care in the year before they attend kindergarten.

There's a new focus on getting more training to early-childhood educators, but there's a dearth of information about what constitutes a high-quality, teacher-preparation program.

The Center for American Progress has released a set of recommendations for governors in 2019 that includes things such as full-day universal preschool and the study of pre-term births, which can cause learning difficulties.

Half of Americans in 22 states live in "child-care deserts"—places where there are more than three children for every child-care slot—according to a new geographic analysis by the Center on American Progress, a liberal think tank.

Without rigorous research that accurately reflects the current population, early education won't deliver for all students, write two education researchers.

Democrat Gavin Newsom, who takes office Jan. 7, plans to expand full-day kindergarten and child-care offerings in the state, according to media reports.

Federal funding for state-administered child-care-assistance programs has declined since 2001, leaving many low-income families struggling to find child care, finds a study by the National Women's Law Center.

Families may be less likely to take advantage of early-childhood education programs if they work nonstandard hours, finds a new report from the National Research Center on Hispanic Children and Families.

Education needs to stop going around in circles, writes Stanford’s Thomas S. Dee.

Waterford UPSTART, an online program that offers literacy and math enrichment lessons aimed at preschoolers, received support from a philanthropy dedicated to funding "bold ideas for social change."

The World Health Organization issued guidelines for children under 5, including its first recommendations on how much time children should be spending in front of a digital screen.

A new report by the Government Accountability Office provides the first comprehensive nationwide look at state early education programs and how they are funded.

Laurie Baker says the rural population should be considered a special population when considering education reforms.

While independent schools can feel quite different from their public, charter, and parochial counterparts, the glue that holds all schools together is this noble charge we call teaching.

While teaching is still in the top 10 of highly regarded professions, parents have stopped encouraging their children to become teachers. Guest blogger Heather Harding explores what should be done.

Being a school leader is difficult. They are meant to focus on improvement while also negotiating their way through adult behavior. Can leadership coaching help them focus on what truly matters?

The policy implications of the ESEA, and its most recent reauthorization, the No Child Left Behind Act, have been at the heart of an enduring public debate.

Few teachers reported assigning English-learners to use digital learning resources outside of class, in part because of concerns about students' lack of access to technology at home, finds a U.S. Department of Education survey.

As black-white achievement gaps widen in schools, so, too, do disparities in discipline rates between black and white students, according to a study published Wednesday of 2,000 schools.

Two high-powered N.Y. officials have put out a blueprint for overhauling teaching in the state, aiming for more-coherent policies for the profession.

40 groups will band together to push principles for "modernizing and elevating" teaching, but many of the groups have contrasting agendas.

Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner said that half of Chicago teachers were "illiterate" in a 2011 email, recently released to a city newspaper.

For years, Gustavo, an architect from Central America, felt drawn to working in the Arabian Peninsula. Then, on a short-term trip, he saw what it could be like to use his profession overseas.

TactX is the 3D coaching tool that can revolutionise the work of every coach and you can take advantage of a number of exciting new features from just €5 a month.

Febrile neutropenia is a common complication in children with cancer. Traditionally, even low-risk episodes have been managed entirely in an inpatient setting, and discharge of the patients has been delayed until resolution of fever and sustainable hematopoietic recovery.

The results of this decision-analytic model evaluating low-risk febrile neutropenia episodes suggest that the substantially higher costs of inpatient management cannot be justified on the basis of safety and efficacy considerations or patient/parent preferences. Uncertainty remains whether intravenous or oral treatment might be the preferable route of drug administration in an ambulatory setting. (Read the full article)

Corticosteroids inhibit the expression of many proinflammatory cytokines released during the course of community-acquired pneumonia infection. Corticosteroids have been found in some studies to be associated with improved clinical outcomes in adults with pneumonia. No studies have investigated corticosteroid use in children with pneumonia.

Results showed that corticosteroid treatment in children with pneumonia is common and its use is highly variable across institutions. Although corticosteroid therapy may benefit children with acute wheezing treated with β-agonists, corticosteroid therapy may lead to worse outcomes for children without wheezing. (Read the full article)

Intussusception is the most common cause of intestinal obstruction in young children. To date, there have been no prospective studies that have been able to develop a reliable clinical prediction model to determine which patients are at low risk for intussusception.

This study is the largest prospective cohort study to date to evaluate children with possible intussusception. It includes both univariate and multivariate analyses to develop clinical prediction models for patients at low risk for intussusception. (Read the full article)

Approximately 27% of children with rotavirus in the hospital acquire it while hospitalized for another condition. Pediatric rotavirus vaccination greatly decreased the number of children hospitalized with rotavirus from 2007 to 2008.

Routine community-based rotavirus infant vaccination protects hospitalized children from acquiring rotavirus. Thus, community-based vaccination efforts should be encouraged as a strategy to decrease hospital-acquired rotavirus. (Read the full article)

The National Children's Study, a large-scale, longitudinal, birth cohort study of US children that endeavors to identify preventable and environmental origins of chronic diseases, has begun recruitment.

In a highly diverse, urban setting, pregnant women can be recruited to participate in the National Children's Study at rates similar to those obtained in clinic settings. Refinements to the pregnancy screener and other components are needed to optimize implementation. (Read the full article)

Associations between short sleep duration, obesity, and metabolic dysfunction have been proposed for children but have not been explored appropriately.

The main findings included a nonlinear trend between sleep duration and body weight and the finding that children's sleep averaged 8 hours per night regardless of body weight. Lower sleep duration values were strongly associated with increased metabolic risk. (Read the full article)

For treatment of obesity in preadolescent children, approaches that focus on parents taking sole responsibility for implementing weight-management strategies may be most effective. However, the optimal content, intensity, and duration of programs for obese children remain unclear.

Targeting parents only, a 10% relative weight loss is achievable in moderately obese preadolescent children and can be maintained 2 years from baseline, which justifies an investment in treatment as a secondary obesity-prevention strategy. (Read the full article)

Preventive asthma medications (PAMs) are a primary management strategy to control asthma morbidity. Little is known about changes over time in prevalence of PAM use among children and adolescents in the United States.

Our analysis demonstrates an increase in use of PAMs among children and adolescents with current asthma in the United States from 1988–1994 to 2005–2008, but racial and ethnic disparities in use of PAMs persist. (Read the full article)

A delay in seeking medical care for children with significant injury often raises a concern about child abuse, but there are few data describing the range of responses children display after accidental fracture for providers to use in comparison.

This study presents the range of responses exhibited by children after accidental fractures and identifies factors associated with a delay in seeking medical care. No child was asymptomatic, although a minority did not manifest all expected responses after their injury. (Read the full article)

Most childhood HIV is acquired through perinatal transmission, some of which is preventable. Practitioners need to understand what proportion of perinatally acquired HIV infections are attributable to missed prevention opportunities.

Missed prevention opportunities include lack of early HIV testing for pregnant women; suboptimal use of antiretroviral medications during pregnancy, labor, or delivery or for the neonate; breastfeeding; and vaginal delivery when maternal viral load was ≥1000 copies/mL. (Read the full article)

Aluminum is ubiquitous and exposure is unavoidable. Adverse health effects have been associated with large exposures in workers or those with chronic kidney disease. There are no established age-specific reference ranges or toxicity data for populations of healthy children.

We demonstrate the wide variability of aluminum reference ranges in biological samples and that the ranges are not based on studies including healthy children. Further research is necessary to establish clinically relevant reference ranges for healthy children. (Read the full article)

Pediatric weight gain is a critical aspect of the obesity epidemic. Chronic stress produces physiologic perturbations capable of altering brain mechanisms related to eating as well as those implicated in self-regulatory behaviors.

We show that early childhood risk exposures are associated with weight gain in adolescence, independent of childhood BMI. We also find that deficiencies in self-regulatory processes help explain the link between chronic stress and adiposity. (Read the full article)