Fyi

Geography scores for fourth- and eighth-grade students in the United States have improved since 1994, but scores for 12th-graders have remained flat, a federal survey showed Friday.

The word jihad will be dropped from the title of the commencement speech of an American Muslim student at Harvard University.

The World Bank on Wednesday selected the first 23 developing nations to participate in pilot programs aimed at educating millions of poor children around the world.

The top academic coordinator for Philadelphia's public schools said Tuesday that she plans to resign, becoming the second high-level administrator to quit since the state's takeover of the troubled district in December.

During a time of war, the University of California at Berkeley is going in the opposite direction -- far-out in the opposite direction.

College Board officials say they hope the addition of essay-writing and grammar questions to the SAT college entrance test will lead students to pay more attention to those skills and produce a nation of better writers.

Administrators at Appalachian State University have been asked to consider teaching classes next term as the school weathers a budget crisis.

Concerned that students who lug heavy backpacks will develop spinal problems, lawmakers in two states may go further than any others to try to reduce excess pounds.

When architects turned a former Safeway grocery into a public charter school in 1999, they ditched the dusty chalkboards.

A California high school teacher runs off to Las Vegas with her 15-year-old student. A Louisiana teacher is accused of having an affair with her 14-year-old student. In the Bronx, a teacher is charged with statutory rape involving a 16-year-old former student.

College Board trustees voted Thursday to add a handwritten essay to the SAT, drop its analogy section and include higher-level math questions in an overhaul following complaints from the exam's biggest customer that it fails to test what students know.

An education group vowed to mount an appeal after a panel reversed a ruling that said the state was depriving students in New York City public schools of a sound basic education.

Like many seniors, the class of 2002 at St. Pius High School celebrated graduation with a party that went past dawn. But instead of kegs of beer, this party featured students' parents -- and a priest.

The common school blackboard, first used widely in the United States in the mid-1800s, was a European import, said Peggy Kidwell, a curator at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History.

Hoping to embarrass slackers who take more than four years to get a degree, the University of Georgia will start referring to students by the number of years they have been enrolled and may take away parking and football-ticket privileges after their senior year.

When students across New York read a speech by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan for a standardized English test, they didn't see his remarks about the United States' debts to the United Nations -- or his references to wine.

The fat salaries and signing bonuses being thrown at college graduates just a few years ago have all but disappeared -- unless you are a nurse.

Call it the polar opposite of snow days: Schools throughout the East Coast have been suffering under a withering heat wave, with some closing early each day.

Ten people, including singer Wyclef Jean, were arrested as thousands of teachers and students turned out for a rally to hear hip-hop stars and politicians denounce proposed cuts in New York City school funding.

South Dakota is joining the other 49 states in administering a standard test used to compare schools nationwide.

Parents in the town of Lynn are challenging the town's voluntary desegregation plan, under which transfers of students outside their own neighborhoods can be denied if they disturb a racial balance.

Three high schools were tentatively added Wednesday to the list of troubled city schools whose operations will be turned over to private companies as part of sweeping reforms.

Summer camp season is approaching, conjuring images of kids sitting around the campfire, toasting marshmallows and exploring the wonders of ... computer programming and the Internet?

An alternative weekly newspaper in Boston is stirring controversy by publishing a grisly photo of murdered Wall Street Journal Daniel Pearl in this week's edition.

The union representing New York City school teachers reached a tentative contract with the city that includes pay increases of up to 22 percent, bringing an end to negotiations that began during Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's term.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is apparently close to doing what his predecessors had long attempted -- bringing the nation's largest school system under the mayor's direct control.

The National PTA is starting a program to attract more Hispanic parents to the education advocacy group.

Elaina Hernandez should feel lucky. In a tough job climate, she landed an accounting job at a Phoenix, Arizona, company right after receiving her undergraduate accounting degree.

The Hispanic school-age population is booming, but spending on programs for those students has lagged and they are four times as likely as non-Hispanic white students to drop out, a report claims.

Complaining that many states have unusually low standards for teacher certification, Education Secretary Rod Paige said states should pay teachers more but also should expect them to master the subjects they teach.

Even at 14, Ben Ortega says scoring well on the SAT is important for any student's self-confidence -- important enough to spend 30 to 50 hours and nearly $1,000 on obtaining his desired score.

Lt. Col. Jack Reiff spent the last 20 years in the Army. Now he's ready to move to a different battlefield: the classroom.

Instead of paying 9 cents a minute through Sonoma State University, 20-year-old Sadie Gardere pays a flat monthly rate of $45 for a nationwide long distance plan that covers her calls home to the Bay Area.

In suburban Kansas City, students teach their teachers a thing or two about technology.

A standardized testing company made serious errors in grading exams given to nearly 340,000 Georgia elementary school students, the state Department of Education said.

With three months to go until the new school year, Philadelphia's sweeping school privatization plan is still far from complete, prompting concerns of turmoil in the fall.