Education is 'civil-rights issue of our generation,' cabinet official tells NAACP
Kansas City Star
Calling education "the civil rights issue of our generation," U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently issued a national challenge for whole communities to get involved in improving public education. "The only way to achieve equality in society is to achieve it in the classroom," Duncan told NAACP delegates meeting in Kansas City for the group's annual convention.More

Program aims to help black men succeed in higher education
Education Week
They have their eyes on twin prizes: first college degrees, then careers in law, medicine, education or business. But they know it's going to take hard work to get there. That's why 22 students have traded a summer of hanging out with friends for a summer of study.More

Charter school serves behavioral, academic needs
Herald Times Reporter
Manitowoc County Comprehensive Charter School is one of few school settings in the nation that focuses equally on academics and behavioral development for primary school students with severe emotional-behavioral disabilities. The school's one teacher and two paraprofessionals work with just a handful of students each year in first through eighth grades. More

Fellowship program opens doors for minority researchers
Diverse Education
According to a 2006 National Science Foundation study, African-Americans, Hispanics and American Indians make up only 2.65 percent, 3.53 percent, and 0.59 percent, respectively, of life sciences academics at four-year institutions. Students from these underrepresented communities sometimes leave graduate school or post-doctoral programs because they feel socially isolated or unable to find mentors.More

South Carolina school district to unveil new, improved websites this fall
The Island Packet
Parents should find it easier to check their children's grades, monitor attendance and keep track of school-sponsored events when the Beaufort County School District launches improved school websites this fall. Students can use the sites to take online quizzes, juggle athletics practices and club meetings, blog with their classmates and communicate with teachers after school. More

Education grants aim to bolster health-care ranks
The Washington Post
Nursing students at Howard University work part-time jobs and still cannot keep up with tuition. However, Howard received $1.5 million from the Obama administration to train student nurses and others in sciences such as radiology and occupational therapy. The money is especially intended to increase the racial diversity of the health-care workforce by keeping minority students in health classes.More

Virginia HBCU hosts Latino student symposium
Diverse Education
As the heat rose with the early Virginia morning sun, so did the anticipation of volunteers hoping to relive an experience that once changed their lives. "I can't wait 'til they get here," said one orange-teed volunteer to another as they milled around the empty Whiting residence hall at Virginia State University. More

Minorities closing testing gap
The Utica Observer Dispatch
Minority students are slowly closing the gap with white students on test performance in the region, but progress remains painfully slow, educators and experts say. That a racial gap exists in testing is a fact that has been showing up on local, state and national assessment tests since the beginning of demographic breakdowns.More

New Rhode Island school funding formula aims at equity
Education Week
For the first time in more than 15 years, Rhode Island has a statewide school funding formula that supporters say will more equitably dole out money to its public schools, though the new system has hardly settled the debate over how best to divvy up state aid for public education.More

College to honor first black applicant 60 years later
USA Today
It was the summer of 1950, and Mary Jean Price, the salutatorian of Lincoln High School in Springfield, Mo., hoped to enroll at a hometown college and become a teacher. At 18, Price was, school records show, the first black student ever to apply to Southwest Missouri State College, now Missouri State University, in Springfield, was denied admission.More