Enrollment of minorities in U.S. colleges has increased substantially in recent years, but not fast enough to keep up with demographic changes.

Between 1995 and 2005, total minority enrollment on U.S. campuses rose 50%, to 5 million students.

The Effective Practice Incentive Community, or EPIC, a Web portal unveiled last week by the New York City-based principal-training organization New Leaders for New Schools, contains in-depth analyses of low-income schools that, like Noyes, are producing strong student-learning gains. The case studies consist of recorded testimony, video clips documenting instruction, and artifacts, such as lesson plans, culled straight from the schools.

Aspiring doctors and medical technicians these days can often get lessons in anatomy, disease or radiology before college. The human body systems class at Wheaton High is among an increasing number of rigorous classes for high school students seeking an early glimpse into the growing health-care field -- and a head start on the training they'll need.

The new president, James G. Cibulka, of the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education is brimming with ideas for change.

He wants to drive institutions to establish programs and practices aimed at increasing precollegiate student achievement, closing achievement gaps, recruiting a highly qualified and diverse teacher workforce, and strengthening induction programs for new teachers and other teacher-retention strategies.

“Common sense and research suggest that being in school consistently is important to ensuring children gain a strong foundation for subsequent learning,” says the report, "Present, Engaged, and Accounted For," from the National Center for Children in Poverty, at Columbia University.

With the pressure on to increase student learning, two states are in the process of overhauling what analysts say is among the most neglected pieces of the teacher-quality continuum: evaluation.

Both Georgia and Idaho are working to help districts institute performance-based teacher evaluations built on clear descriptions of effective teaching practices.

Roland G. Fryer Jr. has quit his part-time post as chief equality officer of the New York City public schools to lead a $44 million effort, called the Educational Innovation Laboratory, to bring the rigor of research and development to education. The initiative will team economists, marketers and others interested in turning around struggling schools with educators in New York, Washington and Chicago.

Under enormous pressure to prepare students for a successful future—and fearful that standard school hours don’t offer enough time to do so—educators, policymakers, and community activists are adding more learning time to children’s lives.

A commission convened by some of the country’s most influential college admissions officials is recommending that colleges and universities move away from their reliance on SAT and ACT scores and shift toward admissions exams more closely tied to the high school curriculum and achievement.

A panel of education experts and researchers on Thursday proposed a broad reconfiguration of federal policies on financial aid for college, including a simpler application process, Pell grant maximums linked to the consumer price index and, most radically, federally financed college savings accounts for children in low-income families.

Ninth grade is crucial to a student's eventual academic success, so secondary schools across the nation, including Pasadena's Muir High, are increasingly sheltering their freshmen in small learning communities or sometimes on separate campuses.

For the next president, one of the first domestic challenges will be to reshape the No Child Left Behind law, hailed six years ago as a bipartisan solution to America's education troubles.

A boom in providers that offer alternative routes to teacher credentials in Texas has sparked a move by the state to set higher standards for preparation programs.

Urban teacher residencies, which focus heavily on classroom-based training and on-the-job support for new teachers, are attracting attention as promising ways to staff city schools.

More than two of five professionals between the ages of 24 and 60 would consider teaching as a second career in the future, according to survey results released today by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.

Among a subset of respondents especially interested in teaching, 27 percent said they would consider doing so within the next five years.

MILLIONS OF American students are back in high school, and before the year is done more than 1.1 million will drop out. In many of the nation's cities and low-wealth rural districts, 40 to 60 percent of entering freshman will not graduate. The suburbs are no longer immune.

Scientists have for the first time established a link between a primitive, intuitive sense of numbers and performance in math classes, a finding that could lead to new ways to help children struggling in school.

A program that targets black freshman boys at high schools with the highest dropout rates is showing promising results in its first year.

Houston's annual door-knocking blitz that aims to locate hundreds of teens who haven't yet found their way back to school has spawned several copycat initiatives in other Texas cities that are also struggling with high dropout rates.

Parents who walk into an elementary classroom might not recognize a mathematics lesson. Children are likely out of their seats, clustered in boisterous groups, flipping coins or arranging colored tiles. The exercise could be part science experiment, part history lesson, part story time.

Six elementary school teachers from Pennsylvania arrived at a summer academy here recently, determined to improve their understanding of science and their ability to convey its principles and mysteries to students.

But those educators understood that their success would depend in no small measure on the actions of another person who accompanied them: their principal.

The Pew Hispanic Center has a new report looking at Hispanic students in public schools.

This summer, the math teachers of Cowlitz County have joined thousands of math teachers statewide in training to meet the state's new standards for higher math achievement.

"It's really powerful and exciting because students are going to benefit so much," said Rebecca Fountain, kindergarten teacher at Butler Acres Elementary School.

The Chicago Urban League sued the state Wednesday, asserting Illinois' education funding system is unconstitutional and violates the state's Civil Rights Act by discriminating against black and Hispanic children.

The Philadelphia School District yesterday threw open the doors of its new Re-Engagement Center, a one-stop spot that matches students who have left school with appropriate programs and services and provides support after they enroll.

As teachers greeted a new batch of students in Jefferson Parish public schools this week, they started working under a new teacher evaluation program too.

It's based on the statewide Louisiana Teacher Assistance and Assessment Program. But those involved in Jefferson's program tout its standards as more specific and, therefore, more useful than the state guidelines.

A variety of federally financed grants based on performance pay are providing insights into how districts and teachers can collaborate to implement sustainable programs designed to improve teaching and learning.

But the question of whether those Teacher Incentive Fund grants will yield measurably higher student achievement, applicant pools with better-qualified teachers and principals, and improved retention of effective teachers so far remains unanswered, say researchers, district administrators, and federal officials.

About 50 percent of low-income students enroll in college right after high school, compared with 80 percent of high-income students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. That's a gap of 30 percentage points, a gap that over the past 30 years has fluctuated between 22 and 49 points.

The U.S. Department of Education has given grants to 20 universities to revamp their special education teacher-preparation programs, a step the department says is key to increasing the numbers of highly qualified teachers in that field.

The grants, announced last month, are the first of what will be five-year projects at the chosen universities. The teacher-training programs should be making changes as soon as this fall for teacher candidates, say representatives of the universities involved.

Few college professors find themselves knocking on a student's front door, asking the parents inside if their son was just killed in a shooting. But Bob Markholt did it just a few weeks ago, after one of his pupils was gunned down in a car on Interstate 5.

On Thursday, the State Board of Education voted to raise the number of credits students would need to graduate, from 19 to 24.

The 16-member board, meeting in Vancouver, also voted to approve much-contested math standards. The Legislature decided that students beginning with the class of 2013 would have to take three math credits to graduate, and the board decided that would mean three rigorous math classes, including algebra II, integrated III, which entails a real-life context for math, or an equivalent course.

Three dozen students poured out of the tour bus and into the State Board of Education meeting. They wore matching red T-shirts and spoke the same message: Increase the number of requirements we'll need to graduate.

D.C. teachers interested in the huge salary increases proposed by Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee would not only have to relinquish their seniority but also risk dismissal by spending a year on probation, according to details of the plan released yesterday.

State education officials plan to put Washington's Class of 2013 on the path of a world-class math education when they meet this week at the Evergreen school district's administrative center.

At a cost of $58 million, five elementary and middle schools will expand to pre-K-8, receiving students from the shuttered schools when classes begin in August. An additional 13 will become pre-K-7 this fall and add eighth grade in 2009.

At the urging of major employers and state officials, the Washington state Board of Education is about to adopt tough new high school graduation requirements.

School districts across the state will have to pick up the $100 million annual cost of benefits related to a teacher pay raise enacted two years ago, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has ruled.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday urged the California State Board of Education to require that all eighth-graders be tested in Algebra 1. If the board agrees during a meeting today, it would mark a huge shift for California middle schools.

In recent years, the state has moved more eighth-graders into algebra. About half now complete the tough subject.

School officials are starting to offer teachers and principals extra pay or bonuses when they take on challenging assignments or raise test scores.

So a Prince George's County teacher could earn a bonus of up to $10,000 a year, and a Baltimore principal might someday get an extra 10 percent for exemplary work.

It's not much of a report card.

Half of Americans say U.S. schools are doing only a fair to poor job preparing kids for college and the work force. Even more feel that way about the skills kids need to survive as adults, an Associated Press poll released Friday finds.

Math and reading test scores are up in most states since the No Child Left Behind law took effect in 2002, but it's impossible to know how much credit the law deserves, a new report says.

The proposals include an early warning dropout prevention program to help identify students at risk of leaving school, and the hiring of student coordinators in low-income schools to help children and parents connect with community-based social services.

Under the proposal by the State Board for Educator Certification, so-called "alt-cert" programs could only take students who maintained at least a 2.5 grade-point average in college. The students then must also achieve a set number of training hours before facing students in the classroom.

Oregon students will have to pass state reading, math and writing tests, or prove they have the equivalent skills, to get a high school diploma, beginning with this fall's freshmen.

Low income and minority children could benefit most from quality preschool, but a new report finds that they're least likely to be enrolled in good early development programs.

In a report released Wednesday by the RAND California Preschool Study, researchers estimate that only 15 percent of those who could benefit most are in high-quality programs that prepare them for success in K-12.

The section of the NCLB law that defines comparability requires districts to allocate Title I money based on the average teacher salary in that district, rather than the actual total spent on salaries in each school, in determining whether a district gives Title I schools state and local funding that is comparable to non-Title I schools.

In April, Ohio education officials secured a $1.3 million grant to explore alternative assessments, such as portfolios, senior projects, journals, small-group collaborations or teacher observation. The idea: Give students an assessment that requires them to accomplish complex or significant tasks rather than forcing them to choose from multiple-choice responses.

Utah leaders are working to join a nationwide trend toward paying teachers based on performance in the classroom. The idea is to both ease the teacher shortage and improve instruction. It would be a huge change from the current system in which teachers are paid based on years of experience and educational backgrounds.

Free tutoring that federal law prescribes to help students at struggling schools has yielded little or no positive effect on student test scores in Virginia, Maryland and several other states, according to early evaluations.

Students taught by educators certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards make bigger gains on standardized tests than students taught by other teachers, finds a National Research Council report out Wednesday.

It is not clear from the research whether the process of getting certified by the national board makes teachers better or if those who get certified were already top performers, according to the report. More research is needed to try to determine that, Hakel said.

There was always something slightly insane about No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the ambitious education law often described as the Bush administration's signature domestic achievement.

Teachers could soon get more than just a moral bonus from helping students graduate from high school.

The State Board of Education could agree today to tie teacher bonuses to high school graduation rates as part of an overhaul of North Carolina's school testing program.

Some of the nation's biggest banks have closed their doors to students at community colleges, for-profit universities and other less competitive institutions, even as they continue to extend federally backed loans to students at the nation's top universities.

Boys outperform girls on a math test given to children worldwide, but the gender gap is less pronounced in countries where women and men have similar rights and opportunities, according to a study published Thursday.

In about a dozen countries, both sexes scored about the same. In many of those places, like in Iceland, men and women have similar opportunities and rights, according to the study, which was published in the journal Science.

Speaking at a science summit that opens this week's first World Science Festival, the expert panel of scientists, and audience members, agreed that the United States is losing stature because of a perceived high-level disdain for science.

The increased borrowing of unsubsidized federal and private loans over the last decade is one sign that more students are paying all or some of their tuition, said Sandy Baum, senior policy analyst with the College Board. So does the fact that nearly half of all college students now balance a job with schoolwork.

The financial fall-out of the last year means private education loans are harder to get and more expensive for those who qualify.

But CTE courses have been frequently threatened by proposed budget cuts from President Bush, including a recommendation this year to slash more than $1 billion from the programs. Federal money is used to pay for teacher salaries, professional development and equipment such as computers and sewing machines to run the programs.

Lawmakers' plan to spend $20 million next school year on performance pay for educators might have some problems, several superintendents said Thursday. 

Superintendents of the Salt Lake City, Box Elder and Uintah school districts said at an Education Interim Committee meeting Thursday that school districts are struggling to create plans to pay educators for performance. Adding to their stress, districts must come up with plans by the end of June to get a piece of the $20 million lawmakers approved in March. 

Until now, the city has paid for retired school employees' health insurance - an amount that this year totals $5.9 million - out of the city's own operating budget, in addition to its contribution to the schools' foundation funding. But Harrington is now proposing that the $5.9 million cost be shifted to the schools, to be paid out of the foundation funding pool.

The net effect, educators say, is a reduction in the amount of money available for various classroom needs.

About half of the states have steady annual goals for increasing the percentage of students passing, or working at their proper grade level. But the other half set the bar very low early on, and starting about now expect big annual achievement gains, according to a report being released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Center on Education Policy.

Under pressure to raise graduation rates, some high schools are turning to online courses to help faltering students revive their academic careers and retrieve the credits they need to earn their diplomas.

As alternatives to remedial lessons, summer school, and other traditional ways of getting struggling high school students back on track, technology-based options for credit recovery have been expanding.

The new report, "Where the Girls Are: The Facts About Gender Equity in Education," also argues for taking a closer look at gender disparities in education and breaking down statistical trends by students' racial, ethnic, and family-income levels, as well as by gender.

At the end of the Apollo space program, the US contributed about 75 percent of technological breakthroughs to the world. That figure is now less than 25 percent, says Rick Chappell, director of the Dyer Observatory in Nashville, Tenn. What's more, 22 percent of technical and scientific jobs in the US today are held by foreign-born workers who could repatriate if opportunities arise in their home countries, warns the 2005 "Innovation and a Competitive US Economy" report issued by the Information Technology Association of America.

But a study released last week by the University of Washington and a Washington, D.C., think tank suggests that something more basic might be at play -- schools with poorer students get less money.

Teaching young children in groups according to their ability does not increase their achievements and is damaging to those pupils allocated to the bottom groups, the biggest review into primary education for 40 years has concluded.

The most astonishing literacy-related information I've ever seen came out over 10 years ago, in Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley's "Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children." Their shocking news: There is a huge difference in the number of words and the prohibitive or affirmative tone of words heard by young children depending on whether their parents are on welfare, in the working class or professionals.

The United Way of America, alarmed at the nation's fraying safety net, will announce today that it will direct its giving toward ambitious 10-year goals that would cut in half the high school dropout rate and the number of working families struggling financially.

More than ever, graduating college seniors are signing up to spend two years in America's poorest communities as part of Teach For America, the nonprofit organization that recruits and trains top college students for teaching jobs.

The group saw applications jump by more than a third this year from about 18,000 to nearly 25,000.

Of those, about 3,700 are expected to step up to the blackboard as new teachers this fall. That's up more than 25 percent from the 2,900 who did so last year.

If you're a 4-year-old in America, it's a safe bet you're in school. The past 20 years have seen a quiet but steady rise in the number of children in preschool. The most recent federal statistics show that more than 1 million children were enrolled in public programs in 2005, up 63% from 1995. The rise far outpaces that of public school enrollment, up 10%.

Enter the flirt-free zone at the Mario Umana Middle School Academy in East Boston, one of the few public schools in the state experimenting with single-sex classes as a way to tame raging hormones, refocus students on their studies, and begin addressing a worsening achievement gap between boys and girls.

Middle schools, forever castigated as the weak link in public education, have made steady progress on Maryland's standardized test, and well over half of the students at the top campuses in the state's Washington suburbs have earned the highest rating on the exam.

Except for such energy-rich states as Alaska, Wyoming, and North Dakota, states across the country are confronting deteriorating budget conditions that have tied the hands of legislators and governors hoping to spare K-12 education.

Should Minnesota follow the lead of many other states and raise the high school dropout age from 16 to 18?

Legislators on Thursday advanced proposals to help poor-performing schools attract experienced teachers and to make it easier for prosecutors to seize gang members' assets.

Chicago Public Schools will expand its foreign language curriculum next year, teaching more students Chinese and Arabic and launching Russian in several schools, officials announced Wednesday.

Most students at Mildred Avenue Middle School come from low-income, minority families and have parents who didn't go to college. Many don't speak English at home and have no plans to attend college.

One train leaves Station A at 6 p.m. traveling at 40 miles per hour toward Station B. A second train leaves Station B at 7 p.m. traveling on parallel tracks at 50 m.p.h. toward Station A. The stations are 400 miles apart. When do the trains pass each other?

In a nation where one-third of high school students - and nearly half of blacks and Hispanics - don't finish high school on time, the US education secretary wants parents and citizens to be able to see which schools, districts, and states are improving their track records.

Now, officials in districts across the country are rapidly adopting similar early intervention programs, hoping that steering a child away from expensive special education classes later will pay off for them, too, in cost savings.

For too long, high schools and states have played hide-the-dropout, artificially inflating their graduation rates. In many places, a teenager practically has to show up at the principal's office and shout "I'm a dropout!" to get counted as one.

Like Mississippi, many states use an inflated graduation rate for federal reporting requirements under the No Child Left Behind law and a different one at home. As a result, researchers say, federal figures obscure a dropout epidemic so severe that only about 70 percent of the one million American students who start ninth grade each year graduate four years later.

A higher percentage of students in public high schools are taking and passing Advanced Placement exams, according to a report issued Wednesday by the College Board. The gap between the performance of black and white students, however, remains large.