Many students in the Houston area got two more weeks of summer vacation thanks to Harvey, the massive hurricane and tropical storm that dumped a record-breaking 52 inches of rain on parts of the city just as the school year was about to begin. Administrators pledged to start school Sept. 11, but they’re still trying to find enough dry classrooms for all of the students.

Charter school advocates celebrated some good news last week: Students attending New York City’s Success Academy charter schools outperformed every district in the state on last year’s annual standardized tests.

And we’re not just talking about a few percentage points.

Americans believe children get the best education at private and parochial schools, according to a Gallup poll released Tuesday.

When asked about the five types of schooling offered in the United States, survey respondents ranked independent private schools first and public schools last, based on the quality of the education. Here’s how the rankings broke down when surveyors asked about schools’ ability to provide an excellent or good education:

Administrators at Texas A&M University and the University of Florida have canceled white nationalist rallies planned for both campuses next month. Leaders at the state schools said they supported free speech rights but feared a possible repeat of the violence that erupted last weekend during a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va.

Organizers vowed to sue, and it’s not clear the schools will prevail.

The Trump administration unintentionally fired a shot across the bow of liberal academia last week when The New York Times revealed Justice Department plans to take up the charge against affirmative action. According to a document leaked to Times reporters, the Justice Department is looking for in-house lawyers to join a new project on “investigations and possible litigation related to intentional race-based discrimination in college and university admissions.”

Amid all the other drama in Washington, one major higher education crisis isn’t getting enough attention: the student loan bubble.

Analyst Daniel Pianko believes the United States is on the cusp of the largest subprime lending bubble since the mortgage boom that sparked the Great Recession. And taxpayers have no idea how much they’ll likely have to pay to extricate millions of borrowers from financial catastrophe.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie signed legislation last week that requires the state’s education department to push transgender-friendly policies in public schools.

The law prevents schools from adopting policies that require students to use restrooms based on their biological sex. It stops short of forcing schools to open restrooms and locker rooms based on gender identity but orders districts to at least find “reasonable alternative arrangements.”