The U.S. secretary of education's call to "turn around" the nation's 5,000 worst-performing schools has found a warm welcome among educators and policymakers who see that focus as long overdue. But it has also sparked debate about how--and whether--such an enormous leadership and management challenge can be accomplished. Secretary of…

This article describes the Buffalo Prep program. Housed at University of Buffalo, the program identifies disadvantaged but talented minority children, places them in academic-enrichment classes, and then finds them spots at private schools and a more selective public high school in the area to complete their precollegiate careers. In addition to…

In the late 1980s, the labor leader Albert Shanker first articulated his vision of autonomous, teacher-formed "charter" schools. He lamented what he saw as a "lockstep" approach to K-12 education across the country that neglected the input of classroom teachers and failed to take into account students' individual needs. Now,…

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…

School leaders have joined a six-state effort by the National Governors Association (NGA) aimed at making Advanced Placement (AP) classes more widely available, recruiting nontraditional students to enroll, and working to make sure those students succeed in the college-level courses. Participants say the NGA initiative is showing impressive early…

As the high-profile Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) network of schools continues to expand, KIPP leaders are taking a close look at student attrition amid arguments from critics that the loss of students at some of those public schools of choice is alarmingly high. Attrition rates at a few KIPP schools in the San Francisco Bay Area, in…

Just before the Fourth of July weekend in 1966, the U.S. Office of Education quietly released a report that would shake the beliefs upon which many educators and social reformers had staked their work. Titled "Equality of Educational Opportunity," the mammoth, 737-page study reached the unsettling conclusion that school might not be society's…

The Broad Acres clinic is one of 1,500 school-based health centers nationwide that bring a wide range of medical, nutritional, and mental-health care to millions of students and their families. The centers provide an important safety net for children and adolescents--particularly the more than 10 million today who lack health insurance, according…

This issue begins a five-part series that uses demographic projections as the starting point for examining some of the forces that will shape public education in the years ahead. It provides an overview of broad demographic trends, including the growing number of school-age youngsters, the increasing diversity of the student population, and the…

This third in a four-part series on why academic achievement gaps exist explains how U.S. Department of Defense schools for children of military families offer lessons on how to raise academic achievement among minority students. Minority students in these schools do better than their counterparts almost anywhere in the United States on…

"Education Week" provides a weekly review of state and federal K-12 education policy news. This special issue of "Education Week" includes the following articles: (1) Below the Surface; (2) School Leaders Seek Innovative Solutions to Improve Student Performance (Steven Dowling); (3) A Decade of Effort (Lynn Olson); (4) A Small Wonder (Debra…

The state of Ohio wants to take charter schools to a whole new level: colleges of education. The state department of education is seeking to establish teacher-preparation schools that are free from state regulations so long as they produce high-quality teachers--a variation on the concept that has led to the creation of more than 3,000 K-12…

This article reports on the federal education law's focus in 2004, which is the school district performance. More than two years after President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act, the far-reaching federal education law is beginning to bear down on school district performance. After a focus mainly on individual schools, 2004 is the…

This year's Quality Counts, Education Week's comprehensive overview on the quality of American education, focuses on the relationship between teacher quality and the growing academic achievement gap. It includes profiles of hard-to-staff schools, state alternative certification programs, and surveys of the 50 states on recruiting, supporting, and…

This article deals with the reasons behind the difference in adequate yearly progress (AYP) outcomes between Florida and Georgia. The states' most recent results on the federal gauge--AYP-- are essentially the mirror image of one another. In Florida, about 77 percent of schools did not make adequate progress. In Georgia, 78 percent did. Both…