legislation

Across the country, education reform is drawing big ideas and big bucks from some big names.

Indiana’s new schools superintendent, Glenda Ritz, is making some allies in the Statehouse: Republican legislators who pushed the education-reform laws that triggered a wave of voter discontent that carried the Democrat Ritz into her new job.

Gov. Rick Perry had called it “foolish and irresponsible” for Texas to apply for funds from the Obama administration’s signature education initiative. He feared Race to the Top funding would come with too many federal mandates on how to run classrooms in his state.

If turnout at a charter school conference held Saturday in Tacoma is any measure, there’s definitely some interest in the independently managed, publicly financed schools that were approved by voters in November.

After failing to come to an agreement with complainants alleging violations of inequality between boys’ and girls’ sports facilities Butte School District No. 1 will conduct a self-investigation by mid-January into its locker rooms, practice and competitive facilities, and plan to remediate any inequalities found.

At least three school districts in Metro Detroit will be closed Tuesday because many teachers are calling in sick to join union demonstrations in Lansing against the Legislature's expected passage of right-to-work legislation.

Maine's highest court will hear arguments this week on whether a private boarding school in central Maine should pay property taxes on facilities it rents to outside groups. The town of Hebron is appealing a Superior Court judgment that Hebron Academy is a "literary and scientific" institution and that most of its real estate is exempt from local property taxes.