New Jersey Governor-elect Chris Christie says improving urban education will be one of his top priorities.

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The first public appearance for Christie after his election victory was at the Robert Treat Academy in Newark, a charter school in which students have high test scores on math, science and language.

Christie: These schools are teaching children 11 months a year, five and a half days a week for a cost that's two thirds of what the cost is in the regular public school in Newark. What I've said is this is a model that we should replicate all over the state of New Jersey.

Christie say's it's an obscenity the state is spending big money on failing schools. He's pushing for bipartisan legislative action to make changes.

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The case of Charleeni Ferreira is reminiscent of 14-year-old Danieal Kelly's gruesome 2006 death. That case exposed problems in the city's Department of Human Services, and prompted child advocates to demand a major overhaul of the city's child-welfare system.

In the most recent case, reports show DHS provided services to the girl's family, but medical examinations did not confirm allegations of abuse, and the case was closed.

Shelley Yanoff is the Executive Director of Public Citizens for Children and Youth.

Yanoff: People from the school were concerned and neighbors seemed to see major differences and major problems with the child and it's not clear whether they responded or not. This is not it seems to me an occasion for more finger pointing but rather for all of us to realize how deep our obligation is to look and protect children.

Chrysler closed the facility in December 2007.  The 58 year old plant includes 3.4million square feet of business space.  Harker said, "the size of this parcel of land and its proximity to our main campus make this truly a once in a lifetime opportunity for the University of Delaware."  He said this will become a corner stone in the University's mission to be an economic cornerstone for the state.

A University statement describes a research and technology campus adjacent to the University and on the Chrysler site.   Harker praised state and congressional leaders from Delaware in their help in getting the deal done.  The city of Newark used to generate tax dollars from Chrysler.  Newark Mayor Vance Funk sees the benefits of a University of Delaware run facility.  He says the University will use city utility.  The University in its statement described improvements to roads and mass transit systems to the area with the expansion.

There is no time table set on when the bankruptcy court will meet to make a decision on the agreement.  University officials will take a walk through the facility soon to see exactly what uses it can propose for the standing structures.  There will be federal money made available to cleanup hazardous materials still at the Chrysler plant.

Over the last few months there were stories of other buyers  interested in the plant, but none publicly surfaced.  The news comes as a potential buyer may be in the works for Delaware's other automotive plant.  Fisker automotive in California has become the leader buyer for the General Motors plant in Elsmere.  Governor Jack Markell's office acknowledges discussions are taking place about finding a buyer for the plant, but would not comment on specifics.  That plant closed early this summer in the General Motors bankruptcy reorganization plan.  The plant had made Saturn's and Pontiac Solstice cars.  The Pontiac car line has been discontinued.  A deal to buy the Saturn line has fallen through.  The fate of that car company is in doubt.

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Philadelphia School District Chief of Staff Tomás Hanna says the contract extension was necessary in part because of the recent state budget impasse.

Hanna: We just wanted to be certain – what are we getting? What's it going to look like? You know we're looking at a multi year deal, agreement. And we just have to be really clear what the budget parameters are so that we can have a good contract.

Philadelphia Federation of Teachers President Jerry Jordan says salaries and benefits are just some of the sticking points.

Jordan: We're talking about educational issues – things that will help to improve student outcomes. For instance class size. We would like to see class sizes reduced in our schools in order for the kids to get more attention from the teachers.

During the contract extension, union members will keep the same wages, health benefits and working conditions.

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The schools remain open, with subs, temps, and administrators teaching as many classes as they can. An adjusted schedule has 9th and 10th graders coming to school one day and 11th and 12th graders reporting on alternate days.

The sticking point centers around salary increases. Teachers are scheduled to get raises for the next two years, but they want to further increase those percentages. Camden Diocese spokesman Andrew Walton says the diocese would be sending the wrong message if it increased raises.

Walton: Folks are dealing with pay freezes, job losses, and in light of these economic circumstances, I think we can see how unreasonable the demands are of union leadership in this circumstance.

A spokesman for the teachers says the contract they've put forward reflects fair wage increases that are in line with salaries nationally.

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Father Scheipers was among 3000 Catholic priests held in Dachau. As the Allies closed in on the camp, the Nazis began preparing to exterminate the prisoners. Their intentions were so obvious that it reminded him of an old German saying that translates as: "you could feel it through a wooden shoe."

Scheipers: So there was a great fear – what will they do with us? What will they do when the Americans get closer to us?

Richard Libowitz teaches holocaust studies. He says survivors like Scheipers can tell the story in a way no book can.

Libowitz: It's special to students – as Catholics – to see that this did happen not just to the Jews – but for people who did anything the Reich did not like.

Father Schiepers will be speaking in the United States for a week.

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At the Girard College Chapel on the 43-acre North Philadelphia campus, 600 students, grades 1-through-12 listened to their new President Autumn Adkins speak about education as a civil right.

Adkins: This is now the civil rights struggle that I'm embarked on. And I know many of you here are embarked on and together we will bring this civil right to this generation.

Girard College is now a boarding school for low-income children who are being raised by a single parent.

Quadeera Jackson is a senior at the school.

Jackson: This is actually very significant to me not only because she's African American but also because she's female. I see that as a very important thing in our society today. This is a building block for the different things that Girard College can accomplish and she clearly has an excellent vision for the school, very elaborate, very ambitious and I just love it.

Jackson plans to become an oral surgeon.

So, it's back to the drawing board for Delaware's "zero-tolerance" policy in schools after all the attention given  the 6 year old boy from the Christina School District who was suspended from his school after bringing in a camping utensil to school.  The combination fork-spoon-and-knife was considered by school officials to be a forbidden "dangerous instrument."  The national attention the case has received may result in the policy being changed by state lawmakers.

Support for Zachary Christie came from around the country with at least three Facebook groups created over the last few  days to fight the school district's suspension.  In addition to the suspension, Christie also faced 45 days in an alternative school as punishment.  That's where the fire storm of criticism erupted. It's not Delaware's first experience with zero-tolerance punishment's having unintended consequences.  Earlier this year, a Delaware fifth grader was nearly expelled from her Newark school for bringing in a knife to school so she could cut cake slices for her classmates.  Now,  State Representative Terry Schooley to sponsor a bill that giving schools leeway in enforcing "zero-tolerance" expulsion policies for weapons at school.  That doesn't help Zachary, who was not expelled, only "suspended" for bringing his combo camping tool to school.  Schooley now plans on tweaking her legislation, "So that school districts have more discretion and can look use mitigating circumstances like a child's age, or intent, or is there past disciplinary problems, really look at the whole range of what's going on with a child."

From the New York Times to cable news networks, the attention given to Zachary's suspension from school will likely help Schooley's new legislation get quick action when state lawmakers reconvene in January.  She says zero tolerance policies do not help keep schools safe.  "They do all the opposite things.  They tend to target minority kids and special ed. kids more of those kids are suspended.  That's not what we expected to happen."  She says schools need to focus on preventing violence, rather than punishing students under zero tolerance.

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The appointments also come on the heels of the resignation of Heidi Ramirez. School advocates say she was the only one to ask tough questions.

One of the new board members is Joe Dworetsky, a bankruptcy lawyer, who served as Philadelphia's City Solicitor under former mayor Ed Rendell.

Dworetsky: The principal tool of a board member is to ask questions and to challenge the answers and to be sure that important decisions be talked through and enjoy the support of the board and I'll do that. I think that anybody that's worked with me over the years knows that I'm not shy, I ask a lot of questions.

The other new member, David Girard-DiCarlo, is also an attorney, and a major fundraiser for the Republican party. Girard-DiCarlo would not comment on his appointment, saying it would be – quote – the "height of arrogance" to do so.

"Our great institutions of higher learning are an important part of my strategy to turn our economy around." He says he hopes the grant money will "launch new companies and create good jobs for students graduating from those institutions."

Initial projects will include the development of an optical gyroscope and emergency medical support for astronauts. The center will work in cooperation with the Goddard Space Flight Center near Washington, D.C., the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.