Recent Educational News

School districts across the nation are experimenting with paying teachers based on performance. An important and troubled district in Washington, D.C., is now moving closer to merit pay. Michelle Rhee, chancellor of the District of Columbia's public schools, talks about her proposal.

As many high school graduates prepare for college this summer, others are getting their passports and heading off on a kind of sabbatical. A growing number of students are taking a short break from the academic grind in order to travel and work.

The U.S. military-funded program is designed to teach reading, writing and math to young men in the Awakening movement, some of them former insurgents who now help American forces to secure their neighborhoods.

College life, for any undergraduate student, is often met with challenges that can sometimes seem larger than life. Those same challenges can be even more burdensome for undocumented immigrants on campuses across the U.S. Kent Wong, editor of Underground Undergrad, and Mariana Zamboni, once an undocumented student, discuss the challenges.

Facebook, MySpace and other online sites are threatening the very existence of college yearbooks. Emily Heiser, editor-in-chief of Purdue University's yearbook, talks about the decision to end publication of her school's yearbook after more than a century.

Education budgets are getting hit by higher costs for fuel and food and by lower tax revenues due to the real estate downturn. But some states are trying to protect schools from lousy economic conditions.

The federal student loan program has helped tens of millions of students pay for college. But with the economy in a downward spiral, lenders have been pulling out. Funding for new loans has dried up. For the first time, public confidence in the program seems shaky.