Your independent guide to NYC public schools

With troubling news about school budgets percolating (more on this later), let's focus this morning on the city's exceptional students. Four students at Stuyvesant the most at a single school and one at Bronx Science were among the 40 national semifinalists in the prestigious Intel Science Talent Search. Kids at MS 318 in Brooklyn beat national chess champs Murrow High School for the city chess title. And kids at IS 98 in the South Bronx take LEGO robotics seriously, as do their peers at 59 other Bronx schools; they're currently raising money to travel to Japan to compete.