Not sure if anybody's even checking in here, but just in case, a few articles you might be interested in:
Dakota came across this story which details an interesting step (whether forward or backward is up for debate) to reorganize an urban school system in Omaha, Nebraska along strictly racial lines.
Sunday's Tribune had an update on the case of Shaquanda Cotton, a 14-year-old African American girl from Paris, Texas who was sentenced to up to 7 years in prison for shoving a teacher's aide (who was not injured) at her school. Cotton was recently released after a year in a youth prison, but her ordeal speaks to our discussions of zero tolerance and of the permanence of racism in U.S. society.
Also in Sunday's Trib, a brief sidebar on Newt Gingrich's recent ignorant comments on bilingual education:
WASHINGTON -- Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Saturday equated bilingual education with "the language of living in a ghetto" and mocked requirements that ballots be printed in multiple languages.
"The government should quit mandating that various documents be printed in any one of 700 languages depending on who randomly shows up" to vote, said Gingrich, who is considering seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. He made the comments in a speech to the National Federation of Republican Women.
"We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto," he said to cheers from the crowd of more than 100.
Finally, the Sun-Times reported last week on a new student loan program that is going to be piloted at 5 schools in Illinois. It's not an answer to all the problems you've voiced, but it sounds promising.
