Today the United States Department of Education and the Department of Justice issued policy guidance that provides greater clarity and encouragement to school districts and higher education institutions as they seek to explore available options for promoting and maintaining meaningful diversity.

By Tarice L.S. Gray
Eighty percent of fourth-graders, 83 percent of eighth-graders, and a truly astonishing 86 percent of high school seniors failed to show a “proficient” knowledge and understanding of the nation’s history – or rather, that they knew and understood the subject matter.

LDF joined more than eighty civil rights, disability, parent, student, grassroots and education organizations from across the country to urge Congress not to turn back the clock on teacher quality gains for poor and minority students, English Learners, and students with disabilities as it considers reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), currently known as “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB).

By Kenneth J. Cooper
New federal research shows that African American and Hispanic students are being shortchanged, literally, when it comes to school budgets, in most districts with diverse enrollments.

By Kenneth J. Cooper
Tennessee State University, a historically black school in Nashville, has devised a program to improve math instruction in the state’s K-8 schools that could help narrow gaps in student achievement and college completion rates.

By Lee A. Daniels
Why, after Texas Governor, and Republican Party presidential nomination seeker, Rick Perry, shrugged off his poor college grades before a university audience the other day, has there been nothing but silence from certain quarters?

By Kenneth J. Cooper
A decade after the No Child Left Behind Act became law, the achievement gap still yawns as schools across the country reopen for a new year.

By Sylvester Monroe
Last week, the city’s schools reopened under a lingering cloud of controversy surrounding a state report released last month by Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal charging Atlanta school teachers, principals and area superintendents with cheating on the 2009 Georgia CRCT (Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests) achievement tests.

By Kenneth J. Cooper
Charter schools are moving into the suburbs, and one of the first in Illinois outside of a big city is near Chicago in a predominately black suburb, where the school’s presence has heightened class tensions and raised questions about educational equities.

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, along with a broad coalition of civil rights groups, education advocates, public rights groups, and others, sent a letter urging federal involvement in accountability through the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).
This letter marks the first time that such as broad assemblage of organizations has spoken in one voice on the need for a strong federal role in educational accountability, particularly for students of color.  The stand these groups have taken will set the tone for when Congress resumes the ESEA reauthorization debate after the August congressional recess.