Try this at home: How equitable is your high school?

Earlier this week, the Department of Education released data compiled through its Civil Rights Data Collection program. For the first time since 2000, every public school in the country was surveyed, and for the first time ever, the results of the survey are being made public in a searchable database.The database has the potential to be a great resource for student journalists who want to learn more about their schools.

Reforming the school-to-prison pipeline: How high school journalists can localize America’s biggest education story

A Florida student playfully throws a lollipop at his friend on the school bus -- and gets dragged off to jail on a battery charge.

N.J. court: Schools can’t withhold extracurriculars to play “good behavior police” for off-campus misconduct

When schools seek to punish students' off-campus behavior on blogs and social networking sites, their "penalty of choice" often is revoking students' eligibility for sports, honor societies and other extracurricular activities.That's because judges generally have given schools almost unlimited latitude to decide who may take part in after-school clubs that aren't considered central to the free public education to which every student is legally entitled.But a new ruling from a New Jersey appellate court torpedoes that distinction, and calls into question schools' widespread practice of withholding extracurricular activities to punish uncivil speech on the Web.In G.D.M.

Indiana School District fights for right to be slumber party police

In T.V. v. Smith-Green Community School District, a pair of students are suing their school after the school removed them from extracurricular activities because the students posted pictures of themselves with penis-shaped lollipops at a slumber party.In a supplemental brief filed with the federal district court on June 10, the school makes arguments totally irreconcilable with precedent or common sense.