Education News

AUSTIN, Texas - Facing a free-speech uproar, the University of Texas backed down Thursday from punishing two students who refused to remove political signs from their dormitory window.

STEVENSVILLE, Mont. - About 90 elementary school students in Montana have started a series of rabies shots after a parent let them touch a dead bat that was later confirmed to be diseased.

Some unlucky investors like Dino Macaluso are feeling the double whammy of the market meltdown: They are watching their investment portfolios shrivel while college tuition payments loom.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - The president of Davenport University has pleaded guilty to a first-time drunken-driving charge and refusing to take a breath test during his arrest.

NORTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. - Ann Burke saw signs of trouble with her daughter's boyfriend.

LINCOLN, R.I. - A car crashed through an entrance at a Rhode Island high school and burst into flames, killing the driver, police and witnesses said. No students were hurt.

Tshipesong, South Africa - On the way home from school, Thabang Thimbela stops off to visit his girlfriend, a few blocks from the tin shack where he and his foster parents and seven foster brothers and sisters live.

NICKEL MINES, Pa. - Empty pasture is all that's left on the site of the one-room Amish schoolhouse where a gunman left five girls dead and five others wounded two years ago and the anniversary of the massacre was expected to pass quietly Thursday.

HOUSTON - The Texas Education Agency is not requiring schools that closed after Hurricane Ike to make up all the time that students missed.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Saddled by student loans and credit card debt, Ryan Little was looking for relief. Like many, the 30-year-old insurance agent turned towards banks for a loan but he ended up finding a much better deal elsewhere, on the Internet, through a website called Lending Club (lendingclub.com).

DETROIT - Detroit's troubled school system, already running a $400 million deficit, is facing a loss of at least $40 million in state aid and the possible appointment of an outsider to manage its finances.

WASHINGTON - The year's most important tax package was in trouble Friday as the House passed a key part of it that the White House threatened to veto and the Senate said was a dead end.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - An $8.9 million online campus launched by the University of Illinois nine months ago has had disappointing enrollment and fewer course offerings than expected, but the man who created it isn't giving up.

MIAMI - For more than a decade, as the immigration debate has swelled on both sides of the border, the Mexican government has been quietly providing money, materials and even teachers to American schools, colleges and nonprofit organizations.

CITRA, Fla. - Passers-by are being credited with pulling students from a school bus that caught fire after it was rear-ended by a tractor-trailer in north Florida, killing one teenager, a school official said.

PARIS (Reuters) - An award-winning film shot in near-documentary style brings life in a difficult Paris high school to the screen and throws the spotlight on a French education system facing mounting pressure to reform.

A report by a group of influential experts recommends that colleges re-examine their admissions and merit aid policies and consider admitting students without the use of scores from standardized tests such as the SAT and ACT.

BOSTON - University of Massachusetts officials on Monday quashed efforts by an Amherst campus chaplain to offer two college credits to any student willing to campaign in New Hampshire this fall for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

DALLAS - A former Dallas schools deputy superintendent accused in a corruption case involving technology contracts has been sentenced to one year of probation.

NEW YORK - Kathy Leeds grows animated as she describes the courses she is taking this fall, including classes in current events, art and literature.

CLEVELAND - Police in Cleveland have arrested two teenagers accused of plotting an attack at a high school on the first anniversary of a shooting last year.

LOS ANGELES - Officials say two people have been shot and wounded on a high school campus in south Los Angeles County.

Washington - Even if presidential hopefuls John McCain and Barack Obama succeed in influencing Ivy League schools to accept military recruiting programs, few believe it would yield more than a handful of new officers.

WASHINGTON - Congress has approved through the 2010 school year a program that will allow students who rely on loans to continue their educations regardless of current difficulties in the private credit market.

COUNCIL, Idaho - The elementary school at the edge of this rural town has a playground that boasts little more than a swing set. That's no problem — the hot new game is inside.

NEWARK, N.J. - Three men and three teenagers were indicted Monday on murder and other charges for the execution-style slayings that shocked New Jersey's largest city more than a year ago.

WASHINGTON - The Smithsonian Institution will work to digitize its collections to make science, history and cultural artifacts accessible online and dramatically expand its outreach to schools, the museum complex's new chief said Monday.

WASHINGTON - Students are doing better in elementary and middle school, but key indicators show little progress among high school and college students, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said.

BENSON, Ariz. - A van carrying high school cheerleaders rolled on a southern Arizona interstate, and two other vehicles crashed behind the wrecked van. Two people were killed, and 14 were injured.