Should urban schools continue to fund gifted and talented programs? Washington Post education columnist Jay Mathews thinks no. “Unfortunately public schools, including those in the suburbs, rarely have the resources or teaching expertise to challenge them much,” he writes.

This week, the Council of the Great City Schools released “A Call for Change: The Social and Educational Factors Contributing to the Outcomes of Black Males in Urban Schools,” which reported that “young black males are in a state of crisis” because they consistently perform lower than their peers.