Ashamed
...Valley by March 31, but a complete troop withdrawal will be deferred until after later negotiations. The White House on Monday said it was "absurd" for a former hostage in Iraq to charge that U.S. military forces may have deliberately targeted her car as she was being rushed to freedom. Giuliana Sgrena, the hostage whose life Calipari saved, said it was possible they were targeted deliberately because the United States opposes Italy's policy of negotiating with kidnappers, and promised Calipari's widow to find out why they were attacked. "He died as a hero, and I cannot forget he had also helped to free us," Maurizio Agliana, one of four Italian security guards kidnapped in Iraq last April, told the crowd. Mourners stood as an honor guard slowly carried the casket, draped with an Italian flag, into Santa Maria degli Angeli Church. In the front row, Calipari's relatives gripped each other's hands and dabbed away tears. That's because of the dark secret that our research has uncovered: Some big-city schools get plenty of money. We have studied actual spending on every school in six big urban districts. Knowing that districts' official budgets ignore many factors that drive spending - for example, differences in the salaries paid teachers in one school versus another, or differences in the services particular schools get from the central office - we followed every dollar. Money for centrally controlled services (teachers who move among schools delivering specialized servi...