Education News

Changes in the federal student aid program that took effect Tuesday will lessen interest rates for some students while increasing the amount they can borrow.

WASHINGTON - Six states are getting the OK to write their own prescriptions for ailing schools under the Bush administration's signature education law.

WASHINGTON - It's not much of a report card.

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - The steel fence that the U.S. government wants to build along the Mexican border would do more than slice through the University of Texas' Brownsville campus and cut off the golf course from the rest of the school.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Nintendo is banned everywhere but the classroom at Tokyo Joshi Gakuen school in Japan as the ubiquitous DS consoles become the latest tool in English instruction.

BOSTON - A program that gained national attention in 1991 for offering to pay college tuition for 69 second-graders is closing its doors in Cambridge on Friday.

The 92-6 roll call by which the Senate on Thursday passed a bill to pay for war operations, boost college aid for troops, extend unemployment benefits and provide emergency flood relief.

TOKYO - The Nintendo DS isn't just fun and games anymore for English students at Tokyo's Joshi Gakuen all-girls junior high school. The portable video game console is now being used as a key teaching tool, breaking with traditional Japanese academic methods.

America's schoolchildren are improving in reading and math – and minorities and those at the bottom of the economic ladder are closing the so-called achievement gap, which is a major goal of US education reform.

Many college towns have tried to limit the availability of alcohol off-campus. Here are a few examples:

WASHINGTON - Skeptical states are shoving aside millions of federal dollars for abstinence education, walking away from the program the Bush administration touts for slowing teen sexual activity. Barely half the states are still in, and two more say they are leaving.

HOUSTON - These days, everyone's feeling the pain at the pump, but for Houston's lowest-paid school district employees — who make as little as $15,000 a year — some relief may be on the way.

WASHINGTON - Is everything spinning out of control? Midwestern levees are bursting. Polar bears are adrift. Gas prices are skyrocketing. Home values are abysmal. Air fares, college tuition and health care border on unaffordable. Wars without end rage in Iraq, Afghanistan and against terrorism.

LOS ANGELES - Oscar De La Hoya has donated $3.5 million toward helping underprivileged students.

CHICAGO - Northwestern University School of Law will offer an accelerated, two-year program for law degrees starting in 2009, becoming the only law school among top-tier institutions to offer both two- and three-year programs, university officials said.

WASHINGTON - A much-delayed Iraq war funding bill sailed through the House on Thursday, along with a doubling of college aid for returning troops and help for the unemployed and Midwestern flood victims.

NEW YORK - Officials say a Brooklyn elementary school was evacuated after a man with a gun was reported in the building. No students or teachers were injured, and police have arrested the man.

SEATTLE - Comparing graduation rates from state to state, or even school to school, can be difficult because all kinds of methods are used to determine them.

TAYLOR, Mich. - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama recalled paying off his own mountain of student loan debt and promised struggling college students Tuesday he would help them pay for school.

The job market is tight, but that doesn't mean finding a summer job is impossible. Some tips for teen job seekers, from Covenant House New York and The College Board:

To hear many students tell it, law school is a guaranteed ticket to a well-paying career. So a recent milestone must have sounded like good news.

REDDING, Calif. - Officials at a Northern California high school have reversed their decision to shut down a school newspaper that published a front-page photo of a student burning an American flag.

NEWARK, N.J. - A gun used to kill three college-age Newark adults last summer was recovered from a reputed gang member who bragged the weapon had "10 bodies on it," authorities said Thursday.

TRENTON, N.J. - The U.S. Education Department has broadened a review into whether Princeton University discriminates against applicants of Asian descent.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. - A teenager accused of planning a Columbine-style attack at his high school pleaded guilty Wednesday to a juvenile count of conspiracy to commit murder and was ordered to remain in custody.

WASHINGTON - If Johnny can't read and Sally can't add, it's often because of the color of their skin and their ZIP code, educators and activists said Wednesday.

LOS ANGELES - A steel tower wrapped in a spiraling ribbon is one of the most striking features of a new arts high school set to open next year.

With their high visibility on elite college campuses, Asian-Americans have picked up a nickname that makes many uncomfortable: the "model minority."

JUYUAN, China (Reuters) - Chinese officials have sent condolences and payments to parents of children killed in a school that crumpled in the country's huge earthquake, seeking to defuse outrage over shoddy buildings and claimed corruption.