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It's the kind of thing that's easily written off as a photo opportunity: a presidential candidate sitting down with a worried student and a financial aid administrator, working out a plan to help the student pay for her education. But, not if the candidate is one who understands the importance of education, and the difficulty of paying for it. So, when I read about Barack Obama helping a college student with her tuition concerns, it made sense.

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The propaganda machine supporting school vouchers, headquartered in the office of Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, is determined not to let the facts get in the way of conservative ideological spin. more »

As college students celebrate graduation this May, their joy is combined with the harsh reality they face post-graduation--many of these students will graduate with unmanageable levels of loan debt that they can not afford basic necessities. more »

Newly released data by the Department of Education illuminates the educational landscape of America. more »

If "making the grade" is no longer a path to "moving on up," then it looks like the decoupling of education from employment, upward mobility, and the American Dream is at least underway. Or maybe it's already happened. more »

The College Board this week released its new Trends in Higher Education report, and it shows how our lack of public investment is putting a college education out of reach of working families.

The report examines college costs, financial aid, and the importance of a college education. It notes that while for the 2007-2008 school year tuition increases at four-year colleges are not as high as they have been for the past five years, total federal grant funding for undergraduates has still not caught up, when inflation is taken into account. In fact, the report says, "total federal grant funding to undergraduates was still lower in 2006-07 than it was three years earlier, after adjusting for inflation."

This is happening at the same time legislatures in many states are not appropriating enough funds to cover legitimate increased education costs.

The College Board report makes clear why the College Cost Reduction and Access Act is needed: more »

The irony of President Bush's demand on Monday for $46 billion in additional emergency spending for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan—an irony missed by most of the news media—is that it occurred as the Senate debated an appropriations bill for domestic education, labor and human services programs that President Bush has threatened to veto—over a comparatively minor $9.6 billion.

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On Thursday, President Bush took credit for signing the College Cost Reduction and Access Act. His claims stand history on its head. Bush said the bill:

"[E]xpands one of America's most important and successful education initiatives—the Federal Pell Grant Program. For the last six years, I've worked to make sure that we expand Pell Grants."

He seems to have forgotten that he was president during the last six years. President Bush and the Republicans, when they were in the majority in Congress, repeatedly defeated Democratic attempts to increase Pell grants. Since 2001, Pell Grant maximum awards to individuals have fallen by $99. In the past three years, total Federal Pell Grant expenditures declined by $1 billion.

Bush even threatened to veto the bill he is now taking credit for. But a majority of Republicans recognized the change in the political winds and signed onto the Democratic legislation, giving it a veto- proof majority. Only then did he decide to sign it.

How dare President Bush take credit for this piece of progressive legislation? The real heroes are leaders Rep. George Miller and Sen. Edward Kennedy, and thhe grassroots coalition, the Campaign for College Affordability.

What a difference a year makes. The Republican-controlled 109th Congress doubled student interest rates and cut $12 billion out of student aid.

The new Democratic 110th Congress has cut the student interest rates and put $20 billion into aid programs. The money comes directly out of the banks' pockets and into the pockets of students and working families.

Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats get credit, to be sure. College affordability was one of the "Six in '06" campaign promises, and Pelosi hit it out of the ballpark. Representative George Miller, D-Calif., was a hero, and Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy worked hard in the other chamber.

But real credit goes to the progressive community. more »

This June I wrote about Chief Justice John Robert's nutjob ruling in the Parents Involved school desegregation case that "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." In other words, his damned fool argument was that it was racist to try to figure out if a school districting plan was racist by counting how many people of ever race attended the schools in the district.

I lectured the Chief Justice that what he was doing meant that if racist school administrators decided to funnel black students into crappy schools in order to keep the good school lily white—rather a pattern in American educational history, that—the government would now be helpless to fight it.

Mr. Chief Justice said: not to fear. It was only "before Brown" that "schoolchildren were told where they could and could not go to school based on their color of their skin."

Read a newspaper, Mr. Chief Justice. Specifically, yesterday's New York Times. And consider what you've just wrought.