The Legislature this morning gave its final approval to both state budgets for next year — one that could lead to hundreds of layoffs at non-education agencies and one that would provide 1,125 fewer state-funded teacher positions.

State Treasurer Young Boozer said today legislative leaders are receptive to a plan for the 2012 session that would smooth out payments to Alabama’s Prepaid Affordable College Tuition plan.

The Alabama House of Representatives tonight voted 56-43 for an overhaul of state tenure law.

Plans to redraw Alabama’s seven congressional districts and eight state Board of Education districts in time for next year’s elections sailed through their first legislative challenges Wednesday and face more debate Thursday.

Alabama prosecutors will seek the death penalty in the Amy Bishop case, her attorney confirmed last night.

Arizona is one of nine states eligible for a slice of $200 million in U.S. Department of Education grant money.

Adult education programs were hard-hit by changes in spending rules for school districts struggling to keep basic operations going during California’s budget crisis, according to a new study released Thursday.

A $4.5 billion experiment intended to give schools greater flexibility over state education dollars has resulted in cutbacks in some programs targeting students who need the most academic help.

California and eight other states are in line to receive a consolation prize after falling short in the widely publicized “Race to the Top” competition for federal school-reform grants.

State officials voted yesterday to expand access to a $200 million fund created for urgent seismic repairs at California’s public schools.

State university officials, who have fought to keep secret the financial details of how campus foundations manage nearly $2 billion, have withdrawn their opposition to public disclosure under a compromise with public records advocates and state Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco.

The U.S. Department of Education today said Colorado has been awarded $6 million for school turnaround work.

Colorado is one of nine states eligible for a new $200 million phase of Race to the Top funding, the U.S. Department of Education announced Wednesday — and state leaders plan to apply.

A proposal to overhaul the University of Connecticut Health Center into a bioscience research hub received a mixed reaction Thursday from lawmakers, some of whom praised its job-creation potential while others criticized its $864 million price tag.

Need a loan for college? Connecticut’s higher education supplemental loan program has $37.8 million in new loan money for the upcoming academic year.

The state-run school for boys in Marianna, which has eluded closure for more than a century despite chronic scandal, is closing June 30 after 111 years of operation.

While scores on the third-grade FCAT held steady this year in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, state education officials cautioned Thursday against reading too much into them.

Elementary schools across the Sunshine State will soon learn how their third-graders fared on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Tests.

Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens asked the state Supreme Court Thursday to reconsider its decision overturning a law allowing the state to create charter schools without the approval of local school boards.

University of Georgia researchers are among the least productive in the nation, according to a ranking that compares research spending at 72 major U.S. research universities to the number of journal articles their researchers publish.

For nine years after he retired as the chancellor of the University System of Georgia, Stephen Portch remained on the state’s payroll, collecting $823,000 as an adviser and consultant, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has learned.

A coalition of former lottery officials and business interests will launch a statewide campaign today to push video lottery gambling.

Fifty years after President John F. Kennedy’s famous speech committing the country to landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth, the state and NASA announced a new partnership aimed at involving Hawaii in the next phase of the agency’s manned and unmanned exploration of the moon and deep space.

Iowans can expect state-paid preschool to be spared from the budget ax next year.

Republican Gov. Terry Branstad said his plan to restructure voluntary preschool for Iowa 4-year-olds remains stalled in the Legislature and changes are unlikely to be in place by the new school year.

Amid great fanfare, the last Legislature consolidated Idaho elections and limited voting to four dates each year. The current Legislature needs to make a few more election reforms.

Organizers of a bid to dump the education and teachers union overhaul that passed the 2011 Idaho Legislature say they’ve gathered enough signatures to put all three repeal measures on the November 2012 ballot.

More than 47,000 Idaho residents, the required number, have signed each of three petitions to put education reform laws recently passed by the Idaho Legislature to referendum votes next year, according to Idahoans for Responsible Education Reform.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna announced today the 38-member Students Come First Technology Task Force that will help implement the unprecedented investments in classroom technology that are part of Idaho’s education reform laws.

Records show the Idaho Department of Education paid more than $800 in March to have a third panic button installed at the agency’s office in Boise.

The organizers behind an effort to put this year’s state education reforms to a public vote say they’ve accomplished their goal.

New census data shows data shows Idaho remains near the bottom when it comes to how much public schools spend per student.

Organizers of a bid to dump the education and teachers union overhaul that passed the 2011 Idaho Legislature say they’ve gathered enough signatures to put all three repeal measures on the November 2012 ballot.

The U.S. Department of Education announced nine states _ including Illinois _ that did not win grants in the earlier rounds of Race to the Top for grades K-12 can compete for $200 million in grants in the next round. The grants range from $10 million to $50 million.

Legislation requiring sex education classes to discuss contraception in addition to abstinence passed the Illinois Senate Wednesday over objections from some Republicans who want local school boards to decide what material is best to teach.

Two years ago Purdue University officials pressed their luck with state lawmakers by not only raising tuition by 5 percent, but also adding a $500 fee to students’ bills.

Kansas is launching an initiative to train more engineers, restrict private health insurance coverage for abortion, declare opposition to last year’s federal health care overhaul and strengthen laws against drunken driving.

Gov. Sam Brownback said there’s still plenty of room for improvement despite the University of Kansas Medical Center jumping 15 spots in the past five years on a National Institutes of Health list.

An initiative to increase the number of engineering graduates in Kansas, which had been dramatically resuscitated at the end of the legislative session, was given final approval Wednesday by Gov. Sam Brownback.

Gov. Sam Brownback signed legislation Wednesday to inject more taxpayer dollars into Kansas’ public pension system while also requiring teachers and government workers to make concessions on their future retirement benefits.

Kentucky is one of nine states eligible for a new round of federal Race to the Top grants intended to promote school reform.

The Senate Education Committee on Thursday spiked an effort to repeal the Louisiana Science Education Act that critics assail as a back door to allow intelligent design and the biblical creation story to enter the science curriculum. The 5-1 vote buries Senate Bill 70 by Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, D-New Orleans.

It’s long been accepted that the moon is dry. No oceans wash its Swiss cheese surface, and lunar rocks and soil samples collected by Apollo astronauts 40 years ago bolstered the case the moon was an arid place.

Two Boston city councilors, frustrated that hundreds of city teenagers quit school each year, launched an effort yesterday to persuade the Legislature to raise the legal dropout age in Boston from 16 to 18.

Johns Hopkins plans to use a $10 million gift to launch an institute for patient safety, aiming to reduce medical mistakes that have long troubled health care facilities around the nation.

Maryland’s state school board said in an opinion issued Wednesday saying that it believes state law needs to be amended to prevent county governments from reducing their current levels of school funding.

Gov. Paul LePage is expected to sign into law legislation allowing 16- and 17-year-olds in Maine to work longer hours during the school year, his office confirmed Thursday. But the legislation provoked lengthy debate before being enacted earlier this week, with some lawmakers arguing students need to be students first.

A 2012 budget that cuts state aid to K-12 schools, universities and municipalities was approved in modern record time this afternoon, four months ahead of the Oct. 1 deadline of the next fiscal year.

Michigan educators fell short in the first two rounds of the federal government’s Race to the Top reform competition, but think they might have a shot at a third phase announced today that focuses on early childhood efforts.

The Republican-controlled Michigan Legislature is close to wrapping up work on a new state budget that would cut funding for public schools and many other state programs after key votes in the state Senate on Wednesday.

The Obama administration announced plans to hand out $500 million in education grants aimed at helping young children, and hours later Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton said that Minnesota would apply.

There’s a $22.6 million hole in the Montana University System budget with the appropriation provided by the Montana Legislature.

With six weeks left to crank out a budget and a $500 million bill from the state Supreme Court for the state’s poor school districts, lawmakers are setting out on a possible collision course over state spending.

New Jersey school finance cases are never simple, but the latest round of standoffs among the three branches of government seems especially confounding.

CHERRY HILL, N.J. — Gov. Chris Christie on Tuesday said a state Supreme Court ruling handed down that morning would drive up taxes in the wealthy Philadelphia suburb he was visiting.

The headline on the lead story in this newspaper yesterday was “Poor districts to get $500M more funding.”

With a Supreme Court decision that orders up another $500 million in funding for low-income school districts and a governor proclaiming that the ball is now in the Legislature’s court, Democratic leaders responded by blaming Chris Christie for ignoring the state funding law and forcing the issue back into their hands.

Tuesday’s Supreme Court ruling means the state’s 31 poorest districts get to share $500 million in additional state aid.

In 1875, in an effort to get control of a patchwork public school system, the New Jersey state Legislature amended New Jersey’s constitution and made it the state’s responsibility to provide a “thorough and efficient system of free public schools.”

It came down to one Supreme Court justice, an unlikely one, to stave off a constitutional crisis, save as much as she could of New Jersey’s commitment to poor school children, and keep alive—for how long, no one knows—the storied independence of the state’s highest court.

New Jersey is among nine states eligible to compete for $200 million in a third round of Race to the Top, a federal competition the state narrowly lost last fall due in part to a costly application error.

Public Education Secretary Hanna Skandera continues to draw fire over state auditing of special education enrollment and other public school records.

The state’s teachers union isn’t satisfied with walking out of the Legislature with just extending taxes — $712 million — set to expire next month.

A bill to create a state office that will work to increase the involvement of parents in the education of their children was approved Wednesday in the Assembly.

Liberty High School senior Spencer Hill-Hale dreams of playing college football this fall, but he needed to make the equivalent of a Hail Mary pass to graduate in June.

Responding to a suspicious spike in the number of students barely passing high school Regents exams, New York State education officials have ordered schools to end the longstanding but controversial practice of rescoring tests that fall just below the passing grade.

State University of New York trustees voted to direct a leading accounting firm to examine links between a private foundation led by embattled Senior Vice Chancellor John J. O’Connor and the public university system.

Parents, school superintendents and potential teachers will soon be able to determine the quality of teacher education programs in Ohio’s public and private colleges.

The amount of money Pennsylvania school districts spent per student — $12,512 — was 11th-highest in the nation in 2008-09, according to recently released Census data.

Another $700 million dollars will be awarded to states as part of the Race to the Top education reform program, federal officials announced this week.

Pennsylvania’s recession-battered school districts face “financial chaos” and some might not survive if legislation passes requiring voters to approve any tax increase above an inflation index, two schools groups warned Wednesday.

Pennsylvania could win up to $50 million in federal money if it’s among the best of the rest from the Race to the Top grant competition.

School budget discussions this spring have been riddled with talk of unpopular cuts, delays and freezes.

The latest plan to use tax credits to help parents send their children to private school died by slim margins Wednesday in the South Carolina House.

South Carolina will not seek millions of federal dollars for its public schools, the state’s Republican education chief said Wednesday as he turned aside a shot at grant money and instead advocated smaller government.

Gov. Bill Haslam disputes assertions by the Tennessee Education Association’s president that teachers feel “totally demoralized and disrespected” because of new legislation such as the bill that eliminates educators’ collective bargaining powers.

The pursuit of a happy medium on school finance continued Wednesday as a key deadline approached for state House and Senate negotiators.

The nation’s overall education spending grew at a slower pace in 2009 than at any other time in more than a decade, amid deepening state fiscal woes and flatter tax revenues, according to new census figures released Wednesday.

Nine states that were also-rans in last year’s Race to the Top school improvement competition will get another chance, the Obama administration announced on Wednesday, though this time $200 million will be up for grabs, compared with $4 billion awarded last year.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration plans to hand out $500 million in education grants aimed at helping young children, in the third round of its Race to the Top state competition for federal money.

Utah again ranks last in the nation for per-student spending according to U.S. census data from 2009 released this week.

Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to award the University of Wisconsin-Madison public authority status is dead, Republican officials confirmed Thursday.

Some school districts in Wisconsin — and at least one judge — are facing a choice. They have to decide whether to release the names of teachers who took a sick day while massive protests over collective bargaining were happening in Madison.

PESHTIGO, Wis. – The Peshtigo School District has accepted the resignation of a teacher who sent a profane, threatening email to a state lawmaker who supported Gov. Scott Walker’s collective bargaining bill.

?Wyoming ranks sixth in the nation for education spending per pupil, according to data released Wednesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.