Widespread technical failures and interruptions of recent online testing in a number of states have shaken the confidence of educators and policymakers in high-tech assessment methods and raised serious concerns about schools' technological readiness for the coming common-core online tests. The glitches arose as many districts in the 46 states…

Some of the students at Success Academy are doing International Baccalaureate-level work. Most of the classes have just five or six students. But this Baltimore public high school isn't for elite students. Admission depends on whether students have done something so serious a regular district school won't have them anymore: assaulting classmates…

Across the U.S., urban school districts are losing students and shuttering schools. In Detroit, some 35,000 students have left the city schools in less than a decade, and the city will close 34 schools and reassign more than 10,000 students in 2006. However, the trend is not limited to Rust Belt cities like Detroit, although their problems tend to…