Education

May 15, 2015 - The South has long been known for having some of the poorest communities and poorest schools. A recent Urban Institute analysis reveals trends in the region at the local level, including a major urban-rural divide.

May 15, 2015 - Bills to provide additional funding for charter schools were introduced this session at the North Carolina legislature. Most of the sponsors have benefited from campaign donations or independent spending by groups advocating school privatization.

May 13, 2015 - Traditional colleges and universities have become unlikely allies of the beleaguered for-profit industry as each group tries to fend off the government's push for more accountability.

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.