The UA Channel brings The University of Arizona campus to our community and also provides a broad view of the world around us.

UA Journal is a monthly series highlighting UA activities in research, the classroom and campus life.

Another UA Channel production, Do The Math, is a series designed to meet the educational needs of middle- and high-school students preparing for the AIMS test.

BBC World News anchors the UA Channel’s schedule with four live broadcasts seven days a week. It offers up-to-date news, interviews, business reports, sports results and weather from around the globe. BBC World News airs Monday through Sunday at 6 a.m., noon, 8 p.m. and 11 p.m.

The UA Channel is cablecast in Tucson via Cox Communications’ digital tier on Channel 116 and in the surrounding area via Comcast Channel 76.

Participants at the recent Tucson Town Hall identified education as the foremost challenge facing our community. Employers routinely complain that high school, and even college graduates who apply for jobs come to the workforce unprepared in the most rudimentary skills. Teachers feel stressed about unending testing and having to forego "frills" like art and physical education. A new discipline at the collegiate level seeks to translate academic jargon into language regular people can understand, and apply to the real world.

At the same time, visits to the classroom yield a wealth of caring, dedicated and innovative teachers and students creating rich learning environments, often with limited resources.

We wonder what's going on, and how can we improve our educational system? I invite you to ponder those questions, and use this space to begin the discussion about the state of education in Arizona.