By Greg Botelho (CNN) The United States’ two biggest school districts get the same threat. One — in Los Angeles — decides to call off school, with the superintendent saying students won’t go back until he’s absolutely sure everything is safe. The other — in New York — decides just the opposite, dismissing the threat as an apparent “hoax.”

By Antonio Gois Tying teacher pay to student test scores. Creating public schools of choice with private operators. Setting common standards for all students. Those issues probably are familiar to any American reporter who covers education.

Noel Frye was smiling ear to ear. “Me graduate,” she said, recalling her accomplishment.

First Lady Michelle Obama upped the funk when she danced to Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ “Uptown Funk” and now she’s rapping her heart out to convince high school kids to “Go To College” in a  College Humor music video. Yes, you already read it right the first time: the First Lady of the United States (FLOTUS) showed off her rap skills in a music video.

The sweeping bipartisan education bill signed into law on Thursday contained a nugget of good news for the tech industry: Computer science has been recognized as important an academic subject as math and English, potentially introducing it into more classrooms across the U.S.

Dr. Pam Homan talks about about the business of education and the role Superintendents play integrating the private sector into a districts long term plans.

The Great Recession may be officially over, but state spending on K-12 education hasn’t recovered.

With a new federal law, the nation’s education landscape is getting an overhaul and advocates say they expect the changes are a step in the right direction for students with disabilities.

With his signature Thursday, President Barack Obama is setting the nation’s public schools on a sweeping new course of accountability that will change the way teachers are evaluated and how the poorest performing schools are pushed to improve.

American high schools got generally good marks for their teaching of topics related to sex education, but there are still many areas in need of improvement, according to a new report card from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Hear that collective whoop from the Capitol? That’s the sound of education advocates and lawmakers cheering at the finish line as the first rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in more than a dozen years sails through Congress and on to the White House. 

Tunette Powell travels across the country counseling families and mentoring youth. An award-winning motivational speaker and author, her professional work in the education field ranges from training nonprofit leaders to consulting for colleges and universities. But none of Powell’s career-related skills could prepare her for the frustration and helplessness of seeing her two sons suspended from preschool, which she pegged to overly harsh and racially biased discipline. In a July 2014 Washington Post opinion piece that gained national attention, Powell relates how her boys—ages 3 and 4—were suspended from their Omaha preschool program eight times total in one year. Once published, the essay resonated with readers nationwide. “So many parents reached out [to me] … a lot of black mothers” who shared her experience with excessive suspensions, said Powell. “We live in a time when we just say, ‘Suspend them, get rid of them.’”

Barnes & Noble Education Inc. said its earnings fell 9.6% since bookseller Barnes & Noble Inc. spun off the college business in August.

Peripheral characters have a funny way of changing our perspective. Once bit players, they invert our understanding of the plot, turn heroes into villains and reframe the issues. Looking at challenge — or stories — from the outside-in brings minor events to the forefront of the narrative to help us figure out what really happened — and why.

Dr. Megan Nickels is an Assistant Professor of Mathematics Education in the College of Education and Human Performance at the University of Central Florida. Nickels researches how children with critical and terminal illnesses (cancer, HIV/AIDS, sickle-cell disease, etc.) learn mathematics through the use of educational robotics, conducting her research using Wonder Workshop’s Dash and Dot robots and the Lego Mindstorms EV3 robotics kits.