Few Americans may know about the Grand Challenges for Engineering--from making solar energy affordable to ensuring access to clean water--but the students at a new school on the campus of North Carolina State University are getting to know them firsthand. The set of 21st-century challenges, devised by the National Academy of Engineering, serves as…

A study released last week suggesting that California's high school exit exams are affecting some student demographic groups more than others is the latest in a small spate of studies pointing to trade-offs from policies that require high school students to pass state tests to graduate. Twenty-six states have exit exams in place or will by 2012,…

Research shows that girls tend to lose interest in science and math as they move through the education pipeline--a retreat that often begins during middle school. Summer science camps can be part of reversing that trend, some say. Academic camps are on the rise across the country, including ones to get adolescent girls excited about the…

This report contains several articles that focus on the new digital divide, which is no longer just one wide gap between those with and those without computers, but is instead a series of divides that create inequities for different reasons. The first article explains how certain types of students are not getting the high-tech experiences they…