MINNEAPOLIS — On any given weekday, in a nondescript storefront on the eastern edge of Minneapolis, dozens of young Somalis gather to get help w...

Americans continue to lose faith in their public schools, a Gallup poll reported recently. Less than a third of Americans said they had a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in schools. Why the drop?

We've learned a lot over the years about how our kids learn best. But putting that knowledge to work in our communities and classroom isn't always as easy as it sounds.

There is more than enough heated rhetoric about "evidence-based" initiatives in education. Turn down the burners, however, and the research appears quite a bit clearer.

The Expanding Learning and Afterschool Project is a 50-state initiative that gives educators easy and direct access to research and promising practices that can help them use time beyond the conventional school day most effectively for learning.

Tree House Books, a nonprofit organization in North Philadelphia, works to "grow and sustain a community of readers, writers, and thinkers" through afterschool and enrichment programs.

We don't have enough afterschool programs. And many programs are being forced to trim their offerings or close their doors due to the struggling economy and budget cutbacks it has brought.

The federal government provides only a small fraction of the public education funds spent by school districts across the country. But its influence far exceeds the dollars provided.

What used to be nothing but a huge parking lot for the Philadelphia Housing Authority has become something much more to a group of residents living in the Haddington section of Philadelphia.