San Jose Mercury News

A Silicon Valley lawmaker is gaining momentum with a bill that would require "climate change" to be among the science topics that all California public school students are taught.

Setting the stage for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Year of Education," a panel he appointed has proposed a sweeping set of reforms that will help define the debate, including performance-based pay for teachers, universal preschool and full-day kindergarten.

Bringing voices from the grave, volunteers at the University of California-Davis are working to decipher nearly a million pages of notes from conversations with long-gone Native Californians, reviving more than 100 languages from the distant past.

Vote: Should 'In God We Trust' be removed from American currency?
A federal appeals court today appeared divided over the latest legal challenge to the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools.

AT PALY, EDITING FOR CIVILITY IS (DARN) HARD
Newspapers across the country, including the Mercury News, are opening their Web pages for readers to add their thoughts, creating a verbal free-for-all that's often a cross between an intellectual marketplace and a barroom brawl.

College students are increasingly opting to study Middle Eastern, African and Asian languages rather than Spanish, French and German, according to a major new survey by a group that has tracked such statistics for nearly 50 years.

Complaining that officials are moving too slowly on their promise to fix California's troubled youth prisons, a public-interest law group says it's time for a court to assume control over parts of the juvenile corrections system.

A former Palo Alto student has won a $260,000 settlement in her lawsuit against the middle school teacher who molested her more than a decade ago,

The University of California Board of Regents is being accused of squashing academic debate for withdrawing its invitation to former Harvard University President Lawrence H. Summers to address the board.

After several years of steady gains in California student achievement, scores across the state leveled off this year, according to school performance data released Friday.

Often dismissed as "just" getting your bell rung, concussions are mild traumatic brain injuries that can lead to long-term neurological impairment if not properly diagnosed and treated.

Students across California improved proficiencies in math, science and reading, continuing modest progress from recent years, according to state achievement tests released this morning.

MORE UC STUDENTS HITTING THE BOOKS, NOT THE BEACHES
Surf's up in Santa Cruz. But first there's that calculus exam to ace. For a record number of University of California students, summer has lost its sanctity

Preschool teacher Sara Porras leans down to speak, first in English, then in Spanish, ...

The owners of a rival social networking Web site are trying to shut down Facebook.com, charging in a federal lawsuit that Facebook's founder stole their ideas while they were students at Harvard.