From Jessica B. Mulholland

The iPad is the hottest tablet to be carrying around. And soon, first and second graders at Burley Elementary School in Chicago will be carrying them around the classroom.

Burley, a literature and technology magnet within Chicago Public Schools (CPS), will use the iPads to differentiate instruction according to individual need, and encourage critical thinking through multimedia apps and collaborative tools. This could include using apps such as Question Builder, which helps elementary-aged children learn to answer abstract questions and create responses based on inference, and iWriteWords, which teaches handwriting.

Burley’s first and second graders will use the iPads to take audio notes on class lessons, conduct interviews and produce their own multimedia projects. For example, the school’s grant proposal says while second graders study forest communities, classes can take pictures of artifacts from nature, inspect them on the tablet, record observations and incorporate those images into multimedia presentations about the forest.

More than 20 Chicago schools will test iPads in the classroom this year, thanks to a mini-grant offered by CPS. Two hundred schools applied for the grants, valued at more than $20,000. Each grant includes 32 iPads, 1 MacBook Pro for syncing purposes, $200 in iTunes credit for applications and a storage cart for the hardware. As CPS implements this new technology into its instructional plans, it must navigate how to make sure it’s an effective learning tool rather than an entertaining tech toy.

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From SHARON OTTERMAN and ROBERT GEBELOFF

Two years ago, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his schools chancellor, Joel I. Klein, testified before Congress about the city’s impressive progress in closing the gulf in performance between minority and white children. The gains were historic, all but unheard of in recent decades.

“Over the past six years, we’ve done everything possible to narrow the achievement gap — and we have,” Mr. Bloomberg testified. “In some cases, we’ve reduced it by half.”

“We are closing the shameful achievement gap faster than ever,” the mayor said again in 2009, as city reading scores — now acknowledged as the height of a test score bubble — showed nearly 70 percent of children had met state standards.

When results from the 2010 tests, which state officials said presented a more accurate portrayal of students’ abilities, were released last month, they came as a blow to the legacy of the mayor and the chancellor, as passing rates dropped by more than 25 percentage points on most tests. But the most painful part might well have been the evaporation of one of their signature accomplishments: the closing of the racial achievement gap.

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From DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

WASHINGTON — The Senate on Wednesday cleared the way for a $26 billion package of aid to states and school districts, and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said she would summon members from their summer recess to grant final approval to the bill.

The measure had been hung up by partisan wrangling between Democrats, who said it was necessary to avert layoffs of teachers and cutbacks in services by strapped states, and Republicans, who objected to another round of government spending and characterized it as a political payoff to unions.

The procedural vote in the Senate was 61 to 38, with the Maine Republicans, Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe, joining Democrats in support of ending debate. The Senate is set for a final vote on Thursday before adjourning for its recess.

The vote quickly prompted calls for the House, which adjourned last Friday, to return to Washington. And in a Twitter message Wednesday, Ms. Pelosi said lawmakers would reconvene next week to approve the bill and send it to President Obama.

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