New set of school standards searches for success

Topock, an Arizona town on the far western edge of the state, doesn’t even have a stoplight. But its school district has scrambled to prepare for the new standards and get the Internet capacity and computers necessary for the 2015 debut of the accompanying test.

Katherine Figueroa was 9 and watching television reports of a workplace raid in Phoenix when she saw video of her parents being hauled away by sheriff’s deputies.

A House committee has given its approval to a bill that would allow some schools to opt out of the state's structured program for teaching students English, which was instituted in order to comply with a federal lawsuit.