In today’s economy it is already difficult to find a job with a degree. It’s even harder without one.

The solution: The American Graduation Initiative, a 10-year, $12 billion plan to invest in two-year community colleges, CNN reported.

President Obama unveiled the new strategy Tuesday with a long term goal to offset the steadily increasing jobless rate.

The initiatives include:

• Community college challenge grants, to help underfunded colleges that are dealing with limited capacity and to build partnerships with schools and businesses.

• The Access and Completion Fund, to provide performance-based scholarships and give colleges the tools to design more programs around work schedules.

• Modernization…

A story on today’s front page claims that due to the details of the federal No Child Left Behind law, some of our best area schools - ones that out-tested 90 percent of the state - had to send letters to parents offering the chance to let them transfer their child to other districts – at no cost to the parents.

From today’s story:

Almost half the area’s 500-plus schools were reprimanded under the law. Yet, according to a Post-Dispatch analysis, nearly 100 of those schools scored above the state average on the yearly tests.
No area district was entirely spared. Federal…

 A new study is claiming that girls really are as good as boys when it comes to how well each gender does in math class.

The story Math study finds girls are just as good as boys, asserts that the stereotype that boys are better at math has been fueled, at least in part, by suggestions of biological differences in the way little boys and little girls learn.

But in the largest study of its kind by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, girls measured up to boys in every grade, from second through 11th. The research was released Thursday in the…

UPDATE:

Rick Sullivan, the chief executive officer of the St. Louis Public Schools,  told the State Board of Education today that the exodus of students to charter schools is draining the district of revenue that could be used to turn around the troubled city school system.

In a story today, Sullivan explained that with the administrative board looking ways to find  $30 million to balance the 2008-09 budget, the district’s finances — particularly the loss of resources to the charter schools — dominated Sullivan’s hour-long report to the state board.

“Those who support charters cannot ignore the fiduciary impact it has,” he said, in…