K-12

Since the mid-1990s, two trends have transformed the landscape of American public education: Enrollment has increased because of the growth of the Hispanic population, and the number of schools has also increased.

Not Enough in America; Too Much in Asia

Download the Discussion Read the original Transcript The current legal and political battles surrounding the teaching of evolution in American schools are part of an 80-year-old debate stretching back to the summer of 1925 and the famous Scopes “monkey” trial in Dayton, Tennessee. Now, as then, the fight reflects deep divisions within the country over […]

Key West, Florida Some of the nation’s leading journalists gathered in Key West, Florida, in December 2005 for the Pew Forum’s biannual Faith Angle Conference on religion, politics and public life. Conference speaker Edward J. Larson, Talmadge Chair of Law and Russell Professor of American History at the University of Georgia, discussed the history of […]

In addition to longstanding concerns over high school completion, policymakers are increasingly focused on disparities in outcomes between Hispanic and white college students.

A report on high school enrollment points to the importance of schooling abroad in understanding the dropout problem for immigrant teens, finding that those teens have often fallen behind in their education before reaching the United States.

A report on the characteristics of high schools attended by different racial and ethnic groups finds that Hispanic teens are more likely than blacks and whites to attend the nation's largest public high schools.

Almost 150 years after Charles Darwin published his groundbreaking theory on the origins of life, Americans are still fighting over evolution. If anything, the controversy is growing in both size and intensity. Recent polls indicate that challenges to Darwinian evolution have substantial support among the American people. According to a July 2005 survey sponsored by […]

National Press Club Washington, D.C. In late September 2005, Kitzmiller, et al. v. Dover Area School District et al. went to trial in federal district court in Pennsylvania. The plaintiffs challenged the decision of the Dover School Board requiring that public schools teach that intelligent design is an alternative theory to evolution. The plaintiffs alleged […]

The Kansas State Board of Education has begun hearings on whether to change the way that biology is taught in public schools to include the teaching of intelligent design, a contrary theory to that of evolution and natural selection.