Education

April 16, 2015 - This fall, North Carolina’s $10 million private school voucher program could expand to four times its current size—the result of an aggressive campaign mounted by an influential trio of well-funded pro-voucher organizations.

February 18, 2015 - With state and federal policies taking a heavy financial toll on historically black colleges and universities, one public HBCU in South Carolina is facing the threat of closure -- and its supporters are fighting back with a federal race-discrimination lawsuit.

November 20, 2014 - It's the latest round in a fight between North Carolina regulators and a charter-school power broker who has tried to keep the financial details of his companies secret.

October 21, 2014 - A lack of upward mobility for young people is a bigger problem in the South than in any other U.S. region, according to a new report from MDC, a North Carolina-based research nonprofit that focuses on reducing poverty and addressing structural inequity.

October 15, 2014 - Baker Mitchell is a politically connected North Carolina businessman who celebrates the power of the free market. Every year, millions of public education dollars flow through Mitchell's chain of four nonprofit charter schools to for-profit companies he controls.

August 29, 2014 - The total student population in the U.S. is projected to become majority minority this year, but the South hit this milestone six years ago. Demographic changes have been sweeping Southern schools, introducing new racial dynamics in what has traditionally been a black and white story while progress on racial integration slips.

August 29, 2014 - Groups in favor of and opposed to school vouchers have invested heavily in the North Carolina legislature and the state Supreme Court, which is now being asked to release voucher money despite a recent lower court ruling that the program is unconstitutional.

August 28, 2014 - Last week a North Carolina judge minced no words in his ruling that a law giving taxpayer-funded vouchers to low-income families that want to send their children to private schools was a violation of the state constitution and the public good. Supporters of the program have asked the state Supreme Court to take emergency action to release the money anyway.

August 27, 2014 - Terminated without due process in the chaos that reigned after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans' unionized public schoolteachers have been fighting back in court -- and winning. After victories in district and appeals courts, they head to the Louisiana Supreme Court next week. Meanwhile, teachers in the charter schools that now control the city's public education system are beginning to unionize.