A new report finding that black and Hispanic students are far more likely to be kicked out of school when they break the rules adds to a growing chorus of concern over the discipline policies being used in K-12 schools. Over the past two years, an increasing number of reports and initiatives have pointed out problems with 'zero tolerance"…

Civil rights, business, and education advocates are warning that Congress and the Obama administration may be willing to defang a key portion of the No Child Left Behind Act in their quest to make the law more flexible, shortchanging racial minorities and other historically overlooked student subgroups in the process. Their concern comes amid…

A strike last week by some 29,000 teachers in Chicago pushed long-simmering tensions over deeply divisive school improvement ideas--including changes in teacher evaluation and the takeover or closure of underperforming schools--into the national spotlight. A framework for a tentative agreement emerged last Friday, and the union's house of…

Faced with their first reporting deadlines for economic-stimulus aid to education, school districts are toiling over how every stimulus penny has been spent so far and how many jobs have been saved--numbers that will be scrutinized not just by the public, but by government auditors as well. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, passed by…

Pascal D. Forgione Jr., who has been the superintendent of the Austin Independent School District since August 1999, will retire in June. In the rough-and-tumble world of the urban superintendency, such long tenures are a relative rarity. As he prepares to leave the stage, Pat Forgione is being praised locally and nationally for his leadership in…

As the first federal stimulus money began flowing to states last week, local school administrators across the nation were crunching numbers to determine just how much relief to expect. Even with the unprecedented federal investment in education under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act--a total of up to $100 billion for K-12 over two…

Throughout the presidential campaign, the leading Democrats have been speaking from a similar script on education--until this month, when U.S. Senator Barack Obama of Illinois suggested that he could be persuaded to support private school vouchers. "If there was any argument for vouchers, it was "Let's see if the experiment…

In a comprehensive action intended to change how the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) law is carried out, the U.S. Secretary of Education formally proposed a package of new regulations that would require state and local school officials to provide more and better information about high school graduation rates, student test performance, and the…

Policymakers are promoting expanded learning time to help low-performing students, but the know-how and resources for implementation are lacking. Providence's expanded-school-day pilot is a partnership between the school district and the Providence After School Alliance, a nonprofit that manages after-school programs for low-income students in…

The number of sports-related concussions reported by young athletes is on the rise, prompting awareness campaigns from athletic and medical groups, as well as proposed federal legislation to set minimum standards for concussion management in public schools. Concussions are caused by a jolt to the body or a blow to the head that causes the head to…

Once a passionate advocate for injecting greater competition and accountability into the U.S. education system, the New York University scholar Diane Ravitch realized three years ago that her views had evolved to a point where she was contradicting herself on a regular basis. Like any good historian, she decided to set the record straight. Her…

The Obama administration's proposal to revamp the signature yardstick used to measure schools' progress under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) is being seen as a bold step toward revising a key feature of the law, even as questions loom about how a new system would work. Under the plan, adequate yearly progress (AYP)--the…

Making college more affordable, raising the minimum wage, and other domestic items were at the top of Democrats' agenda during their meeting at Capitol Hill. President Bush made clear that reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act is one of the priorities. To mark the fifth anniversary of his signing the measure into law on January 8, 2007, the…

Amid a still-shaky economy, a troubling reality is starting to set in for states and school districts: The budget situation may get a lot worse when the federal economic-stimulus spigot runs dry. The hope of the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress has been that the $787 billion in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act--including…

If the competition for a slice of $4 billion in federal Race to the Top Fund money were a school class, Colorado would be one of the kids sitting up front, furiously taking notes, and leaping up to answer every one of the teacher's questions. Officials here began plotting their strategy for receiving one of the coveted grants nearly as soon as the…