Education

As College Application Week wraps up, the next step for many students will be to fill out and complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA.

This year, Jefferson County Public Schools is part of nearly 80 districts nationwide, which are piloting a U.S. Department of Education and Federal Student Aid office initiative to assist students in FAFSA completion.

Around 70 percent of JCPS seniors complete a FAFSA each year, but some applications are found deficient, according to JCPS officials.

The Metropolitan Housing Coalition will release its annual housing report Thursday, the same day Network Center for Community Change—or NC3—will hold a public meeting in Smoketown, addressing a key criticism of vacant property highlighted in the report.

For the past few months, residents and NC3 volunteers have been walking the Smoketown neighborhood and taking notes on vacant properties. The group similarly mapped the Shawnee neighborhood earlier this year.

A Finnish author and education reformer has won the University of Louisville's 2013 Grawemeyer Award for education.

Pasi Sahlberg directs Finland’s Centre for International Mobility and Cooperation and is also author of "Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland?"

The book explains how reforms that began in the 1970s led to the current success the public school system is experiencing. Finland was once poorly ranked educationally and had large inequalities among its students.