The Ford Foundation has pledged $100 million Wednesday to “transform” urban high schools in the United States, focusing on seven cities: Los Angeles, New York, Newark, N.J., Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit and Denver.

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Among “Generation Y” teachers—those who are 32 or younger—a new report finds that 71 percent would “strongly” or “somewhat” favor merit pay for teachers who “consistently work harder, putting in more time and effort than other teachers.”Only 63 percent of older teachers, in comparison, said in a survey they would favor that kind of pay differentiation.

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Thousands of teachers are cashing in on a commodity they used to give away: They’re selling lesson plans online for exercises as simple as M&M sorting and as sophisticated as Shakespeare.

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The Harlem Children’s Zone, a New York City initiative that combines charter schools with community services for minority students and their families, has been shown in a new study to produce dramatic gains in closing the black-white academic achievement gap.

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Final rules for the Obama administration’s $4 billion Race to the Top competitive education grant program retain politically volatile elements.

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A new $11.5 billion chunk of federal stimulus money is now available to states, but to qualify, states will have to fill out a far more detailed application that demands information on how they’re trying to meet the Obama administration’s goals: tougher academic standards, better ways to recruit and keep effective teachers, a method of tracking student performance and a plan of action to turn around failing schools.

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Congress is considering a huge expansion of the Troops to Teachers program, the McClatchy news service reports. Under a pending bill, an estimated 98 percent of U.S. schools would be eligible to hire troops-turned-teachers. In 2008 and 2009, Congress appropriated $14 million for the program each year. The new bill would authorize the program for as much as $50 million a year.

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Oregon math teachers have moved middle schoolers far enough ahead in math that the typical eighth-grader now can do math at nearly the same level as many high school sophomores. Middle school students in every racial, ethnic and income group show greater mastery of mathematics — including algebraic reasoning, statistics and geometry — than they did three years ago.

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International Education Week is a joint initiative of the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education to celebrate the benefit of international education and worldwide exchange.

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