Education

When the girls basketball team was cut from Charlotte Murphy's Pittsburgh school last year, the then 4th grader told the superintendent that the cut went against Title IX. For the 40th anniversary of Title IX, the law that prohibits schools from discriminating on the basis of sex, host Michel Martin talks to Murphy and Superintendent Linda Lane.

Part 1 of the TED Radio Hour episode Building A Better Classroom. Watch Sir Ken Robinson's full Talks — Schools Kill Creativity and Bring On The Learning Revolution -- on TED.com

About Sir Ken Robinson's Talks

The recent firing of the president of the University of Virginia brought that public university into the national spotlight. But on Thursday, the Commonwealth of Virginia contributes only seven percent of the university's budget. Many other public universities receive similarly small percentages of their funding from state budgets, which raises the question — how public are our public universities? Robert Siegel talks to Eric Kelderman, reporter for The Chronicle of Higher Education.

On average, it costs $10,615 to send a kid to public school for a year. (That's federal, state and local government spending combined.)

As the map above shows, that one number masks a huge variation. Utah spends just over $6,000 per student; New York and the District of Columbia over $18,000.

There's even more variation when you get to the district level. Detailed figures and lots more data (including district-level spending) are available in a report the Census Bureau released today.

Title IX was the landmark legislation that required most educational institutions to offer equal opportunities for girls and boys. It changed history and opened up the floodgates to basketball courts, soccer fields and classrooms to women all over the country. Host Michel Martin speaks with three experts about what more needs to be done.

There hasn't been a school strike in Chicago for 25 years. But the current contract between Chicago teachers and the Chicago Public Schools expires at the end of next week, and tensions between the teachers union, the school district and Mayor Rahm Emanuel are ratcheting higher.

Chicago Teachers Union members outmaneuvered the mayor, school officials and anti-union education groups by overwhelmingly approving a measure that allows teachers to strike if contract negotiations fall flat.