Proposals that would allow charter schools, revise the state immigration law, give tax breaks to new industries and borrow money for highway repairs are just some of the high-profile bills lawmakers said they will debate in the 2012 regular legislative session, which starts at noon Tuesday and could run through May 21.

A state lawmaker last week called on the Legislature to reject a proposed rule banning preschools from using state money for religious activities, but legislative leaders say a line between church and state has to be drawn somewhere.

State Rep. Daniel Patterson, D-Tucson, has introduced a bill that would increase the age at which high-school students could legally drop out from 16 to 18.

An Arizona legislative committee last week approved a bill to create an elective high-school class called “The Bible and its Influence on Western Culture,” a divinely inspired proposal that needs only two minor changes.

A judge has slapped down efforts by lawmakers to help balance the budget by forcing more than 200,000 state, university and school employees to pay a larger share of pension contributions.

Arizona’s charter school teachers could be kicked out of the state retirement system if a proposal rule change by the IRS goes into effect in June.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing Monday on four bills that propose to loosen gun restrictions in Arizona. The most controversial of the bills would allow guns on public university and community college campuses.

A little-known California law has dealt a blow to nearly half of the for-profit college campuses in the state, barring them from offering students a coveted Cal Grant this year.

California’s 112 community colleges, the nation’s largest higher education system, may change a lot if Gov. Jerry Brown has his way.

HARTFORD — Connecticut would pump more money into charter schools and increase their numbers under a legislative proposal Gov. Dannel Malloy plans to unveil Monday.

The state’s technical high school system would get a boost in funding, a new board and programs more tailored to the needs of employers under proposals outline Friday by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.

Charter schools would expand and get more money under a plan by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s administration to be announced Monday, but some of the additional funding would have to come from local school districts.

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal is expected to announce his proposal for a needs-based academic college scholarship during a press conference Monday afternoon at Georgia Tech, reports Morris News Service.

More than 200 Atlanta intown residents took to the streets Sunday with a simple message for Atlanta Public Schools: don’t change our children’s elementary school.

Thousands of Iowa students will pick up their No. 2 pencils to fill in tiny circles this month in a school-year ritual that may be as foreign to their children as desktop inkwells were to their parents.

Democrats plan to push for a $122 million boost in spending on local schools, but Republicans warn they won’t agree to any spending until legislators overhaul the school finance system.

A looming political skirmish over the future funding of K-12 education in Iowa might be the harbinger of bigger, high-stakes battles yet to come.

A former Democratic Party leader who angered one-time allies by agreeing to help Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter promote new education reforms has informed his lobbying firm’s clients that his parent company is closing its Idaho office.

GOODING, Idaho — Idaho Educational Services for the Deaf and Blind needs more instructors to help with a sharp increase in the number of students, the administrator says.

Gov. Sam Brownback roared up to the Statehouse last week on his Big Dog motorcycle. “A real sweet machine,” Brownback said of his Wichita-made bike. It was a grand entrance for the Republican governor attempting to make a grand impact on Kansas.

Douglas County legislators differed sharply over school finance, taxes, concealed carry and election law Saturday, mirroring the contentious debates dominating the 2012 legislative session.

I attended public schools. Therefore, my support for them comes naturally. I believe it is in everybody’s best interest, up to and including the government itself, to have a well educated citizenry.

In Virginia, the attorney general, skeptical of global warming, tried to use his subpoena powers to build a fraud case against a climatology professor. In Wisconsin, Republican Party officials sought the emails of a history professor, trying to demonstrate that he had misused his public account to stir political unrest during the state’s highly publicized battles over organized labor. Maryland Del. Sandy Rosenberg, a Baltimore Democrat, has cited these controversies, which garnered national attention, as he vows to prevent a similar situation from arising here.

More with less was the theme of the UM System Board of Curators’ first meeting of 2012. The curators met Thursday and Friday at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and reviewed options to help bridge the gap created by Gov. Jay Nixon’s proposed 15.1 percent cut to higher education this year.

It’s a sign of the times that the interim president of the University of Missouri System began his “state of the university” message with a roundup of cost-saving measures.

Sixty of Mississippi’s 152 school districts have new superintendents.

With less than 48 hours left until the filing deadline, supporters of a campaign to restore the University of North Dakota’s Fighting Sioux nickname are making one last push in Fargo today to collect circulated petitions.

Nebraska’s dominant political party has a new crop of workers and candidates on the way.

New Jersey teenagers would have to stay in school until they’re 18 under a bill going before a state Senate committee.

New Jersey lawmakers are trying to join the conversation about whether to reconfigure some state universities.

We’ve seen it over and over: A sex assault allegation is made on a college campus. The school does its own internal investigation — without notifying outside law enforcement. It’s all very hush-hush and nobody is charged.

What if they gave an election and nobody came? That is nearly true of school elections in New Jersey, which typically cost between $7 million and $9 million to arrange. And they draw just 10 to 15 percent of registered voters to the polls.

The next time people try to tell you how much the data-driven education reform programs of President George W. Bush (No Child Left Behind) and President Obama (Race to the Top) have raised academic standards in America, suggest that they take a look at the Jan. 24, 2012, New York State English Regents exam.

Once again, a bill in the Ohio House would dictate a later start date for most school districts’ academic year to give the state’s tourism industry one more long summer weekend. It was a bad idea in 2007, and it’s a bad idea now.

The buses are gone and the halls are empty, and Ann Kennedy is still in her classroom, talking about how the court system affects public policy.

CHESTER, Pa. — The Chester Upland School District is more than $20 million in debt, its bank account is almost empty and it cannot afford to pay teachers past the end of this month.

His first state budget proposal and its billion dollars in cuts brought months of angry outcry from students, labor unions, Democrats and the physically disabled. This year? Expect more of the same.

Gov. Tom Corbett won’t raise sales or income taxes in his 2012-13 state budget, but there is still the potential for plenty of pain for Pennsylvanians.

State Sen. Mike Stack wants to know exactly how Penn State will pay for any costs created by the Jerry Sandusky scandal — and will issue legislative subpoenas if necessary.

The First Amendment guarantees that public school students have the right to free speech. It also gives them the right to practice their religion. But when does a student’s right to express his personal religious beliefs go too far and cross the line into bullying?

State legislators say a proposal by the governor that could raise the average classroom size in Tennessee schools is getting a cool reception in the General Assembly.

When Christopher Chamness entered the third grade last year, he began to get stomach aches before school.

When Christopher Chamness entered the third grade last year, he began to get stomach aches before school. His mother, Edy, said the fire had gone out of a child who she said had previously gone joyfully to his classes.

Yale University student Marina Keegan received an email last May from Bridgewater Associates, one of the world’s largest hedge funds, offering her $100 if she said why she didn’t apply for a summer internship. Keegan, an English major, decided to take Bridgewater up on its offer.

Key legislators on Virginia’s budget committees are considering new options for local governments to offset soaring retirement costs for teachers in the next two-year budget.

Of all the notable features of the University of Vermont’s newly refurbished Aiken Center — the wood trim milled from local trees, the automated fresh-air supply, the solarium — perhaps the most unusual is a showcase-in the-making, right off the front entrance: the wastewater treatment facility.

SEATTLE — This is the University of Washington’s new math: 18 percent of its freshmen come from abroad, most from China. Each pays tuition of $28,059, about three times as much as students from Washington State. And that, according to the dean of admissions, is how low-income Washingtonians — more than a quarter of the class — get a free ride.

Democrats’ dispute on charter schools stalls state education bills.

West Virginia State University Day at the Legislature is from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Tuesday.

CASPER, Wyo. — The Wyoming attorney general’s office and Department of Education are investigating claims that a former state special education director has made against the department.