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School vouchers are a source of debate between public and private schools nationwide, but nowhere is the debate more acutely felt than in Indiana. Indiana is home to one of the largest voucher programs in the country, and many are waiting to see whether this program delivers on all of its promises. Vouchers are also a major point of contention in places like Wisconsin and Louisiana, where schools are fighting for students and parents are waiting to see if the benefits of school choice will come to fruition. Do vouchers improve the quality of education for all students? With inconclusive test results, the jury appears to be out still. However, that doesn’t change the intensity with which both sides fight for the type of education system they believe is best.

Competition Heats Up in Indiana

The Indiana voucher system is getting bigger this year, and public schools nationwide are feeling the heat. reports that the new voucher system first passed the Indiana legislature in 2011, and the hundreds of students who left public schools for private pastures last year could turn into thousands of students this year. Public schools are turning to advertising and door-to-door campaigning to keep kids in their neighborhood schools and funding in the public school system.

Currently, more than 8,000 students in Indiana have applied for the voucher program for the upcoming school year. There is room for as many as 15,000 students to take advantage of

A question over equality at a top-rated high school in the Fairfax School District in Virginia has once again raised the question of the equality of public education overall in the United States. Thomas Jefferson High School, frequently ranked as one of the top public schools in the country, has recently come under fire by the Coalition of the Silence and the NAACP. The organizations have raised concerns about the low enrollment of minority students into the school, particularly in light of the much higher rate of diversity in schools just a few miles away. However, as one digs into the question of racial inequality at Thomas Jefferson High School, concerns extend into whether minority students in Fairfax County are given the same academic opportunities as their caucasian counterparts.

This TEDTalk discuss racial discrimination in public schools.

Federal Civil Rights Complaint Filed

A federal civil rights lawsuit has been filed with the U.S. Department of Education regarding Thomas Jefferson High School’s admission policies. The complaint alleges that Fairfax County “…essentially operates a network of separate and unequal schools,” which leaves out Latinos, blacks, and disabled students. The complaint further alleges that “for decades, these students have been grossly and disproportionately underrepresented in admission to the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology.”

The civil rights complaint was filed by the Coalition of Silence, an advocacy group formed by

Students in the Highland Park School District in Michigan are consistently failing at one of the foundational skills necessary for a productive academic and professional life – the ability to read. With a concerning number of students within the district reading well below grade level, the ACLU has decided to take matters in its own hands. The organization has filed eight lawsuits against the school district and the state of Michigan on behalf of students and their parents. The charge? Failure to teach children to read.

This video explains reading levels.

Obscure Law Fuels Lawsuit Fire

According to the , the ACLU has filed a class-action lawsuit in Wayne County Circuit Court. The lawsuit alleges that the school district and the state have failed to do their job in ensuring students within the Highland Park School District can read at grade level. The lawsuit further asserts that although students are supposed to be provided with “special assistance” if they don’t make grade-level proficiency in grades four and seven, these students were not given any additional help to bring their reading skills up to par.

The lawsuit calls on an obscure law on the Michigan books known as the “right to read” provision. This law enacted by the state legislature in 1993 states, “A pupil who does not score satisfactorily on the 4^th or 7^th-grade MEAP reading test shall be

Prompting an investigation into an extensive cheating scandal rocked Atlanta schools, public schools in the nation’s capital first came under fire for allegedly cheating on standardized tests. However, a comprehensive investigation into the Washington D.C. cheating issue has revealed that while cheating did occur in some classrooms, the issue was centralized to a small number of classes, rather than hundreds of schools, as previously thought. Still, evidence of any cheating raises questions about the validity of standardized testing and how those scores are used to determine funding, teacher raises and performance evaluations.

Three District of Columbia Schools Cited in Investigation

A report at states that just three D.C. schools have been found guilty of cheating on standardized tests known as the DC-CAS in April 2011. The reports were limited to three classrooms within these three schools, which represents a very small number of the 5,089 classrooms that actually took the tests. The findings were announced by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education.

“The confirmed cases of impropriety represent a very small percentage of public schools and classrooms in D.C.,” Hosanna Mahaley, superintendent of D.C. schools, told USA Today.

This video reports on cheating on standardized tests in the D.C. public schools.

The three schools were classified as “critical” as a result of the investigation, which meant there was solid evidence found of fraud or test tampering in

With the alarming rise in violence at public schools across the country, zero-tolerance policies have become the norm. In theory, these policies should lead to safer schools, since they offer school administrators the ability to deal with infractions promptly and decisively. However, the practice of zero-tolerance policies is showing significant flaws in the system, and many are demanding reform in the rules that have proven to hurt students more than they protect them in some cases.

The Purpose of Zero-Tolerance Policies

The establishment of zero-tolerance policies began in the 1980s. At the time, these policies primarily dealt with major offenses involving weapons and drugs. The term was first introduced by the Reagan Administration when the President launched his War on Drugs. When the federal government passed the Drug-Free Schools and Campuses Act of 1989, zero-tolerance policies became the law.

According to the , zero-tolerance policies expanded with the federal Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994, which mandated that any student caught bringing a gun to school would be expelled for one year or longer. Students accused of violations were also to be referred to local law enforcement agencies. However, it wasn’t long before that zero-tolerance policy was expanded to encompass a host of infractions, from dress code violations to assaults on another student. At that point, many began to question the effectiveness of zero-tolerance policies, particularly in situations where the policy began to override common sense and the best interests of the