New York, Public School | featured news

Open your notebooks and sharpen your pencils. School for thousands of public school students is about to get quite a bit longer. Five states were to announce on Monday that they will add at least 300 hours of learning time to the calendar in some schools starting in 2013. Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and Tennessee will take part in the initiative, which is intended to boost student achievement and make U.S. schools more competitive on a global level.

Public School 30 and Public School 179 are about as alike as two schools can be. They are two blocks apart in the South Bronx. Both are 98 percent black and Latino. At P.S. 30, 97 percent of the children qualify for subsidized lunches; at P.S. 179, 93 percent.

Mandatory sex-education classes are returning to New York City public schools for the first time in nearly two decades.