Texas has had its Robin Hood school financing system in place since 1993, when the legislature adopted the system in response to a state supreme court order to equalize state spending on public schools. Under the arrangement, any district that has taxable property values exceeding $305,000 per student is not allowed to keep all of its property-tax…

"Quality Counts 2008" reintroduces state grades in six key areas, from the Chance-for-Success Index to the teaching profession. This special issue of "Education Week" includes the following articles: (1) Human Resources a Weak Spot (Lynn Olson); (2) Teacher Salaries, Looking at Comparable Jobs (Christopher B. Swanson); (3) Data…

Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has, over the past 12 months, tackled unrest over the No Child Left Behind law, the hurricanes' impact on schools, and "Postcards from Buster." As secretary, Ms. Spellings inherited a department stung by a scandal over federal payments to the commentator Armstrong Williams for promoting the Bush…

This brief article reports that on May 1, 2006, tens of thousands of students across the country stayed out of school to join a nationwide boycott, organized mostly by Latinos, to oppose federal proposals that would crack down on illegal immigration. Public school districts in Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco reported…

This article reports on the result of a study written by researchers at the RAND Corp. According to the report, California's education system is lagging on nearly every measurable standard of quality, from funding to teachers to student achievement. The comprehensive, 258-page study offers a sobering analysis of the decline of a state education…

As students displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita continue returning to their home school districts in Louisiana and Mississippi, tens of thousands remain scattered elsewhere in those states, in nearby states, and across the nation. Months after schools began rolling out the welcome mat for families fleeing New Orleans and other storm-ravaged…

The Indiana Supreme Court has struck down a school district's $20 school activity fee as a violation of the state constitution because, the court said, it is equivalent to a tuition charge. The 22,100-student Evansville-Vanderburgh school district imposed the fee on all K-12 students in the 2002-03 school year. The money was used to pay for…

The University of Chicago holds the charter for and runs four independent public schools. As a charter school operator, the University of Chicago is investing considerable resources in the venture, in faculty time and expertise, back-office support, and fundraising. It's also putting the highly selective university's good name on the line. The…

This article reports how an "Education Week" review of hundreds of e-mail exchanges that detail a pattern of federal interference in "Reading First" have skirted legal prohibitions. In regular e-mail discussions, Christopher J. Doherty, the Reading First director at the U.S. Department of Education until last September, and G. Reid Lyon, a branch…

Illegal immigration is a divisive issue in the politically conservative East Texas community of Tyler, known by many locally as "The Rose Capital of America." Drawn by jobs in the rose fields and iron foundries, Mexican immigrants began settling here with their families in the 1970s. Hispanic children--citizens, legal residents, and…

Massachusetts is meeting its constitutional requirement to provide students with an adequate education and does not have to overhaul its school funding formula, the state's highest court ruled in a closely watched case in February 2005. The February 15 decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court surprised many observers, who had expected…

With systems of accountability for student achievement now widely in place, state policymakers and others are applying the principle on another front by trying to hold schools more responsible for how they spend their money. Auditors in some states regularly calculate the percentages that districts spend on classroom resources compared with…

The U.S. Department of Education will see its smallest budget increase in nearly a decade under the catchall spending plan approved by the Republican-controlled Congress in a lame-duck session. For the first time since President Bush entered office, the budget will fall short of his overall request for education funding. The final fiscal 2005…

Michael A. Rebell, a 61-year-old former Peace Corps volunteer, is one of a small band of lawyers whose legal efforts are changing the way many states pay for their public schools. He was among many lawyers of the era who had been inspired by landmark cases such as "Brown v. Board of Education." In the late 1980s, he noticed education cases would…

Good fiscal news is arriving in state capitals: Tax revenues are finally starting to recover from their four-year swoon. The bad news: States face pressure to meet increasing health-care costs and to replenish rainy-day and other funds legislatures tapped in recent years. The bottom line is that schools will have to fight for significant increases…