Last Oct. 29, Hurricane Sandy drowned the Bay Park Sewage Treatment Plant in East Rockaway with more than nine feet of saltwater, destroying its pumps, shutting down its operating systems and overwhelming the already weak facility. more

Two weeks ago, the Herald detailed new English and math standardized tests that New York’s public and charter schools gave to students in grades three to eight last month. In this report, the Herald continues an examination of how “opting out” from the tests could affect the students who did so and their schools. more

First of two parts. School officials in the Merrick, North Merrick and Bellmore-Merrick Central High School districts say they do not yet fully know how certain parents’ refusal to allow their children to take new standardized tests will affect the students or their schools. more

A handful of parents in Merrick and North Merrick told school administrators that they would refuse to allow their children to sit for new standardized state exams, which began in elementary schools around the state this week. The parents, who believe that the standardized exams lack pedagogical merit and are harmful to students, say they would like to see a grass-roots civil-disobedience movement involving other parents taking the same action that would force the state to cancel the exams. In all, 50 students did not take the exams on Tuesday, the first day they were administered, according to officials in both districts. more

Semifinalists in the prestigious Intel Science Talent Search were announced recently, and, as usual, Long Island came up big in the contest. more

Next week, when students return to classes, they will be greeted by new teachers, meet some new classmates and may even notice the shiny floors and clean desks. more

The Merrick and North Merrick school districts are working hard to adapt their curricula to the “common core standards” recently adopted by New York state. more

On Friday, Aug. 5, just days after Congress passed and the president signed a deal to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, Standard & Poor’s announced that it was downgrading our debt … more

We should have seen the Standard & Poor’s downgrade of the U.S. credit rating coming –– last year. On July 13, 2010, Dagong International, a Chinese credit rating agency, lowered the U.S.’s rating from AAA to AA. Few in the West noticed. Some laughed. Clearly, though, Dagong’s calculators saw what we could not. more

My father served as a union president — a teachers union president — in Suffolk County nearly four decades ago, in the days when educators like him were given little respect, and even lower wages. more