Larry Abramson

New Orleans has become the center of an education revolution, where more than 70 percent of students attend a charter school.

The number of students taught in traditional district-run schools is shrinking fast. That's because parents in post-Hurricane Katrina can pick and choose from a smorgasbord of schools with different approaches and cultures.

By many measures, this educational marketplace has improved student achievement. But as this experiment moves ahead, it's led to questions about whether the district is truly open to the most challenging students.

Students are borrowing more money to pay for college than ever before. New data shows that students who graduated in 2010 carried 5 percent more debt than in the previous year. And education debt is expect to grow in the coming years, as students struggle to pay higher tuition costs.

Bank of America canceled plans to impose a $5 monthly fee on customers who use debit cards in stores and restaurants. The bank's original decision to charge the fee came under sharp attack from consumer groups and individual customers.

Many of the protesters occupying Wall Street and other places say they are are upset about the rising price of going to college. Tuition and other costs have been going up faster than inflation and family incomes can't keep up. Despite public outrage about the problem, there's little sign these costs will drop anytime soon.

The Obama administration wants states to focus more of their attention on the lowest-performing schools, where large numbers of students are failing state tests year after year.

So the Department of Education is inviting all states to apply for waivers from the No Child Left Behind law.

The waivers could win relief for schools where a small number of students are falling short of federal requirements.

But advocates for minority and special education students worry their students will be ignored.

The 'Failing School' Stigma

The Department of Education says that as distance learning has grown so has fraud. An inspector general's report found that scam artists are taking advantage of the popularity of online education to steal federal education money.

The White House is announcing Friday that it will grant waivers to states that cannot meet the testing standards of the No Child Left Behind education law. But states will face strict scrutiny from Washington before they get these waivers.

The nation's for-profit colleges and universities have reaped a windfall from the new post-Sept. 11 GI bill.

The top for-profit companies brought in around a billion dollars in benefits in the last year alone.

Some lawmakers say federal regulations encourage these schools to target current and former members of the military.

At a Senate hearing Thursday, lawmakers and witnesses praised the two-year post-Sept.11 GI bill, saying it had helped many vets and active-duty service personnel go to college.

The start of a new school year in Maryland brings a new requirement: All schools in the state must develop plans to promote environmental literacy. The new requirement is creating some challenges for teachers. The goal is to integrate environmental concerns into science, social studies and other topics.

Comcast, the nation's largest cable operator, has launched a new program aimed at reducing the digital divide, or the gap between high- and low-income communities in Internet accessibility and digital literacy.

The company says low-income families will now be able to get a fast Internet connection for $9.95 per month; the question now is whether the effort can overcome the many barriers that keep the poor from getting online.

If there were an award for the "most challenged" school district in the United States, the Detroit public school system would have good reason to claim the title.

The system is wrestling with crumbling buildings, low achievement and a decline in enrollment that just won't stop. But this year, the system has added some new faces and plans to the mix in an attempt to revive it.

Irene knocked out power to millions and threatened transportation systems up and down the east coast. The restoration of most subway and bus lines in New York City helped avoid the commuting nightmare that some had feared, but the storm will leave many without power for days.

Hurricane Irene caused havoc for many rail lines, forcing crews to face a maze of downed trees and branches on the tracks and restoring power to some lines.

While Hurricane Irene did not turn to be the storm of the century, it did cause millions to lose power, forced hundreds of thousands to be evacuated and resulted in a number of fatalities.

Cheating scandals have rocked a number of school districts across the country this year. The publicity is pushing states to look for better ways to detect and prevent tampering with the test results, and some say constant vigilance is required to guard against cheating.

A magnitude 5.9 earthquake struck the Northeast Tuesday, sending tremors from New Hampshire to North Carolina. Office buildings were evacuated in major cities and a nuclear plant near the quake's epicenter in Virginia was taken offline.

Detroit Public Schools will continue closing schools this year, in an effort to keep up with a steady decline in the number of students. Neighbors fear that a closed school will add to the city's rapid decline in population.

A child born today will never see an American space shuttle blast off from the Kennedy Space Center. The end of the shuttle program worries educators who say that human space flight is a great recruiter for future scientists and engineers. Don't worry, NASA says, its education mission won't slow down when this final shuttle flight lands.

Keeping A Captivated Audience

Guide Dogs for the Blind in San Rafael, Calif., has been teaching students how to adapt to life with an animal at their side since World War II.

The training process lasts about a month, and recently, about half-dozen blind students were preparing for their second class. Some are here for the first time and have to learn everything from scratch, like how to put on that harness. The school serves about 300 people a year.

Part 2 of a two-part report.

A lot of struggling math students have found comfort in the mathematical stylings of Salman Khan.

A few years back, Khan started creating videos to help tutor his cousin in math. Those videos became so popular, he quit his job with a hedge fund to work on them full time. Now his online Khan Academy offers more than 2,100 videos and attracts scads of teachers and students. Now, some adventurous school districts are trying to bring Khan's approach into the classroom.

Working At Your Own Pace

Part 1 of a two-part report.

Many school districts are reluctantly cutting staff and dropping courses in a desperate effort to respond to tighter budgets. But some educators are looking at ways to save money and improve instruction at the same time.

The answer for some schools: blended learning, which is part computer lesson, part classroom instruction.

Michigan's governor announced a new reform program for Detroit schools Monday. The program creates a mini district for the city's lowest performing schools — and it works with university and private partners to improve schools and offer guaranteed college scholarships for city students. Detroit's long-troubled school system has been beset in recent years by financial mismanagement and declining enrollment. The district has already embarked on a plan to turn nearly half of its schools into charter schools.

For many teachers, job uncertainty is one of the biggest downsides of their profession.

Recent estimates from the American Association of School Administrators show that about a quarter-million educators could face layoffs in the coming year as states cut education spending in an effort to balance their budgets. That has left many teachers wondering where their next paycheck will come from.

Two of those teachers facing uncertainty are in Los Angeles, where as many as 1,600 teachers and staff may lose their jobs this summer.

This story is the first in an ongoing series on education overhaul in Detroit.

The Detroit Public School system hopes to convert dozens of schools into charters in the next year or so in a last ditch effort to cut costs and stop plummeting enrollment.

The plan faces tremendous skepticism from a generation of parents and teachers frustrated from previous reform efforts.

No one has ever done what DPS is trying to do: turn more than 40 schools into charters, some in just a few short weeks.

Part of a series on young people and financial literacy

Fairfax County in the Washington, D.C., suburbs has plenty of shopping malls. Finance Park, though, is the only one exclusively for tweenagers. Every eighth-grader in this large, suburban school system must show up at this mock-up of the real world, spend money and act like an adult for a day. Jacque Weir says she was magically transformed into "a single mom with an 8-year-old."

Many disabled people say that life without their service animals is unthinkable. And while public institutions are required to admit service animals without question, some public schools claim they cannot handle the disruption of a dog in a busy classroom.

Disabled students are hoping new federal guidelines will help them avoid legal battles over their animals.

Nathan And Sylvia

Everyone at Sherando High School in Virginia knows Nathan Selove: He's the kid with the dog.

A recent gift to Florida State University is once again raising questions about what kinds of strings donors can attach to their gifts. Big donors say they are just trying to ensure that universities expand their research, but many faculty feel that schools strapped for money are agreeing to unacceptable conditions.

Amid criticism from education reform advocates who say many teacher preparation programs provide poor training, a national organization is conducting a review of more than 1,000 programs to help aspiring teachers choose from the best. This consumer guide for prospective teachers — conducted by the National Council on Teacher Quality — will be published in U.S. News and World Report next year.

But many schools of education say the effort is misguided, and they are threatening to scuttle the project.

Compiling The Stats

The state of Indiana has approved one of the country's most extensive school voucher programs.

Republican Governor Mitch Daniels says vouchers will level the playing field for Indiana students. Some are hoping this and other efforts will push vouchers into the educational mainstream.

The Indiana voucher program will take state support of private education into new territory — the middle class. These programs are typically available only to low income or disabled students, but Ohio's plan will give some public support to families earning as much as $61,000 a year.

Best-selling author Greg Mortenson has been defending himself against accusations that his homegrown charity may have misspent public donations. A recent article and 60 Minutes story allege the author of Three Cups of Tea used those donations to help hawk his books. While the accusations have not been proven, the shock waves are already hitting his charity, and the non-profit world in general.

The tough economy continues to boost the number of students in college, as people try to burnish their job credentials. That's leading some schools to ask whether they should shrink the time it takes to get a degree.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich has ordered state universities to investigate ways for students to get a bachelor's degree in three years. The hope is that three-year degrees will help save students money and get them into the job market quicker.