Every weekday I’m reading the day’s education news and sharing the top headlines with you. Here are this morning’s finds: Hawaii State Board of Education member Breene Harimoto leaves the board to run for City Council, New York City’s education department examines its gifted test to ensure it’s not discriminating against minorities and it’s payback time for the University of Phoenix’s parent company.

• Breene Harimoto is leaving the Hawaii State Board of Education to run for City Council, The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported today. Harimoto has made no secret of his distaste for how the board operates and frequently casts dissenting votes. Should be interesting to see what he has to say about things once he’s made his formal exit June 30.

• The New York City Department of Education may reassess its test that determines which students qualify for “gifted” programs, the New York Daily News reported today. The current test doesn’t qualify enough minority students, school leaders are saying.

• The company that owns the University of Phoenix, the largest for-profit school in the U.S., is returning $1.8 million to students and the government as a result of a Department of Education investigation into its financial practices, BusinessWeek reported yesterday.

• Wisconsin Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Neumann has introduced his education platform, the Wisconsin State Journal reported. It involves increasing local control over school spending and amping up competition among schools.

• The Washington Post’s Answer Sheet blog interviewed best-selling education author and expert Diane Ravitch about the response she has been hearing from teachers nationwide about President Obama’s education policies. You might be surprised by some of the answers.

• Paul Peterson at EducationNext today uses an Amtrak ride as impetus to ponder whether charter schools might be a better symbol of democracy than fully public schools.

• Inside Higher Ed takes note of law schools that have been easing up on their grading systems, purportedly in response to easier grading systems elsewhere. Interesting to me, because I went to a school, Hillsdale College, so academically rigorous that urban legend had it most grad schools tacked on another half grade point to our GPA’s to make up for the toughness.

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