North Carolina is losing at least $169 million a year in taxes and public spending on the tens of thousands of students who quit high school annually, according to a study released yesterday by two school-choice groups...

High-school seniors who want to go to a selective college in the fall of 2008 should already be making arrangements to take the tests they will need before they apply ahead of the deadlines for such schools, which are usually in January or February...

A decade ago, when President Bill Clinton's "voluntary national test" proposal was crashing on the rocky shores of a Republican-controlled Congress, scholar Chester E. Finn, Jr. quipped that national testing was doomed because conservatives hate "national" and liberals hate "testing..."

In a move being hailed as a "historic and unique" agreement on the controversial issue of merit pay, teachers at 200 high-need schools would earn an average of $3,000 in bonus pay if their schools raise student achievement significantly this year...