Education

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.

Saturday is the 40th anniversary of Title IX, which, although almost nobody anticipated it then, resulted in women's gaining the right to participate in sports commensurate with their numbers attending college.

Title IX not only had a huge effect on women's participation in sports, but also, culturally, it influenced the way both men and women view the idea of women and athletics. It's mattered greatly in our American society.

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MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block at NPR West, in California.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

And I'm Melissa Block. The University of Virginia is reeling over the sudden firing of its president. Last week, the school's state-appointed governing board surprised the university community with that announcement. The ousted president, Teresa Sullivan, was in the job for less than two years.

Faculty and students have rallied behind Sullivan, calling the firing a coup by the board. From member station WVTF, Sandy Hausman reports.

BATON ROUGE — Louisiana's education board has agreed to a framework for a new statewide voucher program that will use tax dollars to send children to private schools. But that framework does not have accountability standards required by the Legislature and still being ironed out by the education department.

Monday marks the 200th anniversary of the start of the War of 1812. Even though it's a conflict that inspired our national anthem and in which the British burned down the White House, the war remains a forgotten chapter in U.S. history. But not so in Canada. Robert Siegel talks with two history teachers — one from the U.S., the other from Canada — about teaching the War of 1812 in their classrooms.