Claudio Sanchez

The Florida Supreme Court hears arguments on the constitutionality of a statewide school voucher program. The program allows students in low-performing public schools to attend private schools at the expense of taxpayers. The case has implications for several other states trying school-voucher programs.

Big city schools such as those in the Los Angeles Unified School District face a host of problems. Education correspondent Claudio Sanchez discusses racial tensions, overcrowding in the classroom and changing demographics at urban schools across America.

Harvard University will spend $50 million over the next decade to promote diversity on its faculty and make changes in the way women in science and engineering are treated. University President Lawrence Summers has been criticized for theorizing that differences between the sexes may explain why so few women work in the academic sciences.

Thursday, the Kansas state Board of Education begins hearings that could decide what public school students learn about the origins of life. For one Kansas science teacher, it's a familiar debate.

U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings says the Bush administration will adjust the No Child Left Behind Act in response to opposition from educators and state lawmakers. The most significant change allows schools to exempt more students with disabilities from state testing programs.

Authorities in Houston investigate the tracking of the dropout rate in Houston high schools. Some observers claim 42 percent of Houston's ninth-graders never make it to their high school graduations. School officials say the number is closer to 25 percent.

Houston schools have been implicated in a cheating scandal after test scores in some Texas school districts made suspicious leaps. An inspector general is investigating at least 23 schools. Questions arose in 2004 after The Dallas Morning News found strong evidence that educators were helping students cheat at nearly 400 schools statewide.

Fallout continues over the U.S. Education Department's payments to a commentator for promotion of the No Child Left Behind law. Lawmakers from both houses of Congress have begun inquiries into the department's public relations spending. NPR's Claudio Sanchez reports.

As President Bush prepares an effort to expand many of the No Child Left Behind Act's provisions to high schools, NPR's Claudio Sanchez examines the law's successes and shortcomings.

This week, Boston public schools issued report cards to kindergarteners. For the first time, 5-year-olds are being evaluated based on literacy, math and various academic skills. Debated for years, the new policy is getting poor marks from some teachers and parents. NPR's Claudio Sanchez reports.