Schools News Around the Blogosphere

Schools on a shoestring: Specialized programs cut to the core
Orlando Sentinel
Students across Central Florida will learn a brutal lesson in economics when the new school year starts next week. For years, school leaders juggled their budgets to prevent the state's chronic money woes from creeping into the classroom. But they're out of options now and scaling back popular programs for gifted students and troubled kids.

Opinion: We can learn from special schools
The Age
JULIA Gillard has called for a "raging debate" about how our education system compares to the best in the world, how to ensure that every school is a great school, and how to ensure every child gets an excellent education.

ACT scores show 3 in 4 need some remedial help for college
USA Today
Average scores on the ACT college entrance exam dipped slightly for the high school class of 2008 as the number of students taking the exam jumped by 9% compared to last year. This year's results, released Wednesday, reveal that more than three in four test-takers will likely need remedial help in at least one subject to succeed in college.

Even the SPED kids outperformed black students.
S.F.'s black students lag far behind whites
San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco schools earned bragging rights on state standardized tests again this year - performing better than the state as a whole across every grade in both math and English - but any celebration was clouded by the subpar proficiency of the district's African American students, who continued to fall further behind their peers.

Could bumpy economy lead to slumping education?
USA Today
By Libby Quaid, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Harder times and higher fuel prices are following kids back to school this fall. Children will walk farther to the bus stop, pay more for lunch, study from old textbooks, even wear last year's clothes. Field trips? Forget about it.

Homeschoolers Threaten Our Cultural Comfort
Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Tupelo, Ms.
You see them at the grocery, or in a discount store.
It's a big family by today's standards - "just like stair steps," as the old folks say. Freshly scrubbed boys with neatly trimmed hair and girls with braids, in clean but unfashionable clothes follow mom through the store as she fills her no-frills shopping list.