For parents or students having conflicts with their schools or teachers, there is now a place for them to turn.
The Office of the Education Ombudsman is a relatively new agency within the governor's office that connects parents, students and educators to information and answers and hopes to bring families and schools together to improve student achievement. The ombudsman has been offering services for about eight months so far. It is the first state-level ombudsman office in the nation for K-12 education.

The Bush administration announced Tuesday it will require states to report high school graduation rates in a uniform way instead of using a variety of methods that critics say are often based on unreliable information.
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings announced the change at a news conference at which a report was released showing that 17 of the nation's 50 largest cities had high school graduation rates lower than 50 percent. Seattle's urban graduation rate was 57.6 percent, compared to its suburban graduation rate of 76 percent. Those numbers are nearly identical when comparing graduation rates nationally for African American and White students – 53 to 76 percent, respectively....

What's happening for me in Portland this week? Read here a day-by-day diary of free community events to fill your week. For a full calendar please click on "Read the complete article" below.

Garfield Community Center guard Jalon Wright, brings the ball down the court in the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation 2008 Youth Basketball championship game for 11 year-olds in the bronze division. They were playing against Magnolia Community Center. Garfield had an 8-1 record during the regular season but lost to Magnolia 43 to 36. Thirty games were played by both boys and girls, ages 10 to 17 during the 2008 Youth Basketball Championship Games, held March 27 through March 30 at several locations including Meadowbrook Community Center and Nathan Hale High School.

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Radio talk show host and lawyer Warren Ballentine will headline a conference on law enforcement in Portland April 17-20. The northwest chapter of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives will hold its annual training conference, "Leadership through Excellence: A Dialogue to Mentor Our Future" at the Crowne Plaza Holiday Inn,1441 N.E. 2nd Ave. Anyone working in the field of justice will especially benefit,...

MISSOULA, Montana (AP) -- With no end in sight to the hard-fought Democratic presidential battle, both Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton were already launching their campaigns Saturday in western states that will be among the last to hold primary contests. Obama and Clinton were scrapping for every last nominating convention delegate....

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) -- President Robert Mugabe's ruling party demanded a vote recount and a further delay in the release of presidential election results, the state Sunday Mail newspaper reported, prompting outrage from the opposition party.
Meanwhile, militant supporters of the ruling party invaded eight of the few remaining white-owned commercial farms, the farmers reported, another sign Mugabe plans to use violence to stay in power.
At least four cattle ranchers were driven off their land, and equipment and livestock were seized, the farmers said.
"I've got one farmer and his wife with two young children, and people banging on windows, ululating and beating drums and telling them to vacate the farm," in northern Centenary, Hendrik Olivier, the head of the Commercial Farmers' Union told The Associated Press.

The questions Richmond activist Adia Blackmon posed to a group of 13 girls were basic.
How many wanted to be mothers?
Blackmon, charged with mentoring the girls, counted 13 arms in the air.
How many wanted to be wives?
Their response shed light on a community that leads the nation in levels of single-parent homes.
"Only one hand went up," said Blackmon, who was floored by the response from Black girls as young as 11.
"They said they wanted the fathers to be involved and wouldn't mind them coming around," she said. "But they did not want to be married to them."....

It takes just seconds to leave behind this muted Harlem side street and enter the parlor of Maya Angelou's brownstone, a step as bright and quick as a black and white film dissolving into Technicolor.
Plump sofas and armchairs in bursts of green and blue and red and yellow form a ring on spotless hardwood floors. Toward the rear, like a shy, well-dressed prodigy, a baby grand piano looks shined to stage perfection. By the piano, stained glass doors open to a red dining area centered by a mahogany table as big and round as the voice of Angelou herself.
Still close to her youthful height of 6 feet,