Teacher Uses Nature As Classroom

What does the average classroom looks like? When you think a classroom, you think of a room with such features as a chalkboard, a globe, a bunch of books, a bunch of desks, a bunch of kids, and a fish hatchery and wildlife center, right? Well, maybe the last part isn't what most people image when they visualize themselves in a classroom, but Cuba-Rushford Central School teacher Scott Jordan, who's fisheries and wildlife studies program just might make them think differently.

USA Today's website continues it's series that honors the members of 2004 All-USA Teacher Team with a report on how Jordan's efforts has shown the eighth-through 12th-grade students of Cuba-Rushford Central School in Cuba, N.Y. a whole new world. The program uses hands-on activities to help the students gain a stronging understanding of math, science, technology, meteorology, chemistry, physics, social studies and writing.

Jordan's program allows students to obseverve and examine live creatures for scientific research.

Middle-school principal Barbara Funk applauded Jodan's program Funk said,"As the young people in our locale face a world of poverty, unemployment and diminished social opportunities, Scott's program draws in under-represented students and opens new horizons for them."

America's Educators Aren't Equipped to Handle School Violence

The Columbine Shooting may have help several schools be more aware of what's going on with it's students (read "Columbine Massacre May Have Saved Our Schools"), but the New York Times said that teachers lack the skills to handle the emotional needs of students and there's a giganitic shortage of school counselors (according to federal data retrieved by the Times there were 478 students to every school counselor in 2002).

Horrible acts of violence in our nation's school, including the massacre at Red Lake High School (read "School Violence Timeline" to refresh your memory) may have occurred because of the feeble training that most of America's teachers recieve before facing classrooms filled with children. [Note: The Times said that in Minnesota, where the Red Lake High School shootings took place, had almost 800 students for every counselor]

He is Coach Roderick Jackson, Hear Him Roar

Ensley Magnet High School's girls basketball team (in Birmingham, Ala.) is finally free from the once mighty clutches of gender discrimination thanks to their coach. Roderick Jackson grew tired his team getting the shaft-the New York Times said that the was forced to put up with secondhand twisted rims on wooden backboards, unequal budgets, lack of ice for injuries, and having their J.V. team eliminated while the boys J.V. team remained untouched-Coach Jackson decided to take on the Birmingham Board of Education in order for his team to recieve the rights and priviledges they deserve.

The battle between the Coach Jackson and the board was so intense that it went straight to the Surpreme Court, who ruled for the coach in a 5-4 vote.

Summer Workshops Give Educators New Possiblities

Press Relase #2 might be aluring to teachers and principals-from both elementary and secondary schools-who a looking for a new, better way to shifttheir students in the right direction. U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings (remember her?) announced today that the U.S. Department of Education is holding six regional workshops this summer.

Those who decide to attend a workshop will get an opportunity to collaborate with their peers and learn new methods dealing with literacy and reading, mathematics, science, social studies, the No Child Left Behind Act, special education, English-language learning, school leadership, testing, using data effectively, federal grant writing, and more.

The workshops are a part of the Teacher-to-Teacher initiative, which is designed to help teachers improve their skills by keeping them informed of the latest strategies and research that will help students reach their full potential.

This year's workshops will be held:

June 20-22 in Cincinnati
June 27-29 in Phoenix
July 11-13 in Minneapolis
July 18-20 in Tampa, Fla.
July 25-27 in Bethesda, Md.
Aug. 1-3 in San Jose, Calif.

Does any of this sound highlty appealing? If yes, then register for the workshops and other aspects of the Teacher-to-Teacher initiative by going to www.ed.gov/teacherinitiative.

Inner-city Schools are Improving, says the Department of Education

Our nation's department of education has released two new press releases!!!

Press release #1 involves Margaret Spellings, secretary of education, who responds to the Council of the Great City Schools's newsest edition of its report, Beating the Odds (warning: you need adobe reader to read report). The Council's report says that things are definitely looking up for America's major inner-city schools.


And we owe it all to the No Child Left Behind Act. Or at least that's what Spellings says:

"These findings would suggest that the work of urban educators to raise student achievement is paying off. Children held to high academic standards can perform—they just need to be given the chance. That's why President Bush addressed the soft bigotry of low expectations by insisting that all students be held to the same high standards. In the 21st century, all children—urban and suburban—must be equipped with the best education possible so that they have the necessary skills to succeed. All children can indeed learn, and this study proves it."

Press release #2 is on the way soon.

Not Now, I'm Busy!

Sorry Moon Man fans, but won't be able to give you what you need tonight.

I have a lot of schoolwork to catch up on.

Don't fret, though. I'll be back with new articles tomorrow!

Parents With Friends in High Places Better Watch Out

I find a washington post article that is a wonderful example of how shady politics can be. Lawmakers in Maryland (and many other states, I bet) can legally give scholarships to friends, relatives, and campaign participants. With financial aid being very limited in Maryland, many people aren't very happy. In fact, legislators are doing what they can to rub out Maryland's scholarship program, which allows Marylands senators and delegates to distribute money however they see fit.

Of course, there are state officals who think that the program is AOK and feels that need for money should not be the only requirement for finanical aid, like Sen. Paula C. Hollinger (D-Baltimore County), who gives her money to nursing students to help terminate a recent shortage in the field.

Hypocracy Stinks

Television, movies, video games, and celebrities like Paris Hilton have been America's main targets for a long time. People complain that the targets are the reason why the nation's children are in such bad shape. They STRONGLY believe that kids pick up terrible habits, like...let's say smoking, from the images shown by the entertainment industry. But what about the real life adults of the world, like parents, politicians, and school administrators? Are they setting a good example for their children? Sadly, if they weren't, most adults would't admit it. We definitely need more people, or should I say children, like Central High School student Eliazar Velasquez from Rhode Island.

Velasquez caught his school principal, Elaine Almagno, violating a state law that prohibits smoking within 25 feet of a school building. After taking a few pictures of Almagno and exposing them on a website, his school gave him a special reward...suspension. But thanks to the American Civil Liberties Union, Velasquez sentence was lifted.

Wanna see the photos with an interesting article by Velasquez? Go to http://centralscoop.tripod.com/article1.htm (pictures are located at the bottom of the page.)

Government Responds to States' Problems With No Child Left Behind Act

The U.S. Department of Education struck back against a report made by the Center on Education Policy which revealed that most states aren't confident that its schools will reach the level set by the No Child Left Behind Act (read my March 24 post, Several States are Running Scared Thanks to No Child Left Behind Act, to find out more about the report). In a Dept. of Ed. press release, Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education Ray Simon made a statement about the achievements made thanks to the act and the mistakes made by the Center on Education Policy in their report.


In response to the report, Simon said:

The perpetual cry for more money, once again echoed in this report, simply does not comport with the facts: since taking office, President Bush has increased education funding by $13.8 billion, or 33 percent. The difference is that this administration is holding states accountable for delivering results with those taxpayer funds. If, as required by No Child Left Behind, students are measured, and the results show they aren't achieving, then the law will have helped local educators see the problems, which in turn will help them make improvements in teaching and learning.

School Violence Website

After reading the USA Today article about how the Columbine massacre has motivated several schools to focus more of their time on its students, I decided to surf the Internet to find anything about school shootings. My journey through the Net ended when I discovered the Trenchcoat Chronicles, a weblog about the unbelieveable violence that has occurred within schools for several years.

Go to www.thetrenchcoat.com and tell me what you think of it.

Columbine Massacre May Have Saved Our Schools

How does a school avoid a vicious shooting? PAY ATTENTION TO THE STUDENTS!

It feels very wrong to say that something good come out of the Columbine shootings that occured so many years ago, but there is no doubt that the incident was horrible and deepily disurbing, but at least the shootings has tought several other schools to not only to be more cautious but to pay more attention to what's going on with students.

USA Today reports that schools, including one high school in Marshfield, Mass. that avoided a major disaster, has learned that a listening ear, an observant eye, and a will to build strong reationships with students can make school a much safer place.

Several States are Terrified Thanks to No Child Left Behind Act

A new survey from the Center on Education Policy reveals that the No Child Left Behind Act is a major pain to most states. State test scores have increased and the achievement gap between different student groups and between those with and without disabilities has slimed since the law has passed. However, most states feel that their is no way that they can meet the Bush Administration's standards.

Several states also feel that a little help from both state and federal government would be allow their schools to live up to Bush's standards. Four-fifth of our states says that they weren't getting the dough they need to meet the law's requirements.

For more info on how much our nation enjoys the No Child Left Behind Act, read this New York Times article or check out CNN.com's latest report.

Will Evolution Cease to Exist?

Religious folk might be still angry about the "no prayer in schools" rule.

A survey from the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) show that religion is planning to make a comeback and is evolution may soon become extinct. About one-third of our nation's science teachers have received much heat from devoted followers of creationalism-the belief that species have divine origin-because courses in creationalism are not a part of the curriculum of our schools. With help from the National Academy of Sciences, the NSTA plans to protect the rights of America's science teachers.

Read this USA Today Article for more details.

Crazy Joe Clark Would be Proud

Few of our nation's political leaders know nor care about schools such as P.S. 105, located in Far Rockaway, Queens. Why? Because P.S. 105, an underdeveloped school in a dangerous, poverty-strickened area, is the type of school that isn't very appealing to most government officials in America. Luckliy, the New York Times isn't afraid to tell the school's inspiring, unbelievable story.

Before teacher Laurie Shapiro became the prinicpal of P.S. 105 in 1998, the school was an absolute mess. In addition to being on New York State's failing list, the school suffered from constant fights between students, disputes between teachers and school officials, and strong critism from parents. Ten percent of its students were proficient in math, nine percent in reading.

Then Shapiro, a teacher and district administrator for 17 years, stepped in and turned the school around. Now, according to the Times, "the number of students proficient in math has increased fivefold since the late 1990's; in English, proficiency has tripled." Unfortunately, the school still has a long way to go.

For more info on P.S. 105, Check out the school's profile from insideschools.org.

School Violence Timeline

One of the problems several Americans is that they tend to be deeply concern about an issue, such as school violence, until that issue is considered to be "old news." Newspapers, television programs (both news and non-news), and people on the street constantly bounce from one hot topic to the next. I decided to find a history of school shootings in America in order to remind those who have forgotten that the massacre at Red Lake High School is DEFINATELY NOTHING NEW.

Look at this school shooting timeline that I found on the Associated Press website:

- Sept. 24, 2003: Two students - Aaron Rollins, 17, and Seth Bartell, 14 - were fatally shot at Rocori High School in Cold Spring, Minn. Fellow student John Jason McLaughlin, who was 15 at the time of the shooting, awaits trial in the case.

- March 5, 2001: Charles "Andy" Williams, 15, killed two fellow students and wounded 13 others at Santana High School in Santee, Calif., in San Diego County. Williams was sentenced to 50-years-to-life in prison.

- May 26, 2000: 13-year-old honor student Nathaniel Brazill killed his English teacher, Barry Grunow, on last day of classes in Lake Worth, Fla. after the teacher refused to let him talk with two girls in his classroom. He was convicted of second-degree murder and is serving a 28-year sentence.

- Feb. 29, 2000: Six-year-old boy shot and killed 6-year-old classmate at Buell Elementary School in Mount Morris Township, Mich. Because of his age, the boy was not charged.

- Nov. 19, 1999: 13-year-old girl shot in the head in school at Deming, N.M., and died the next day. A 12-year-old boy later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to at least two years in juvenile prison.

- Apr. 20, 1999: Students Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 23 before killing themselves at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.

- May 21, 1998: Two teenagers were killed and more than 20 people hurt when a teenage boy opened fire at a high school in Springfield, Ore., after killing his parents. Kip Kinkel, 17, was sentenced to nearly 112 years in prison.

- May 19, 1998: Three days before his graduation, Jacob Davis, an 18-year-old honor student, opened fire at a high school in Fayetteville, Tenn., killing a classmate who was dating his ex-girlfriend. Davis was later sentenced to life in prison.

- April 24, 1998: Andrew Wurst, 15, opened fire at an eighth-grade dance in Edinboro, Pa., killing a science teacher. The boy pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and other charges and is serving 30 to 60 years in prison.

- March 24, 1998: Two boys, 11 and 13, fired on their Jonesboro, Ark., middle school from nearby woods, killing four girls and a teacher and wounding 10 others. Both boys were later convicted of murder and can be held until age 21.

- Dec. 1, 1997: Three students were killed and five wounded at Heath High School in West Paducah, Ky. Michael Carneal, 14-year-old, later pleaded guilty but mentally ill to murder and is serving life in prison.

- Oct. 1, 1997: Sixteen-year-old Luke Woodham of Pearl, Miss., fatally shot two students to death and wounded seven others after stabbing his mother to death. He was sentenced the following year to three life sentences plus 140 years.

- Feb. 19, 1997: A 16-year-old boy took a shotgun and a bag of shells to school in Bethel, Alaska, and killed the principal and a student and injured two others. Evan Ramsey is serving a 210-year sentence.

10 People Killed in Shooting Rampage

According to the Washington Post, "The nation's worst school shooting since the Columbine massacre" has taken place in Red Lake High School in Bemidji, Minnesota. A high school student shot and killed his grandparents at their home, went to the school, and killed eight more people (including himself) in a shooting rampage. A two-page Washington Post article features quotes (from people who managed to survive the shooting) describing the details on what went down during the rampage.

(Five students, a teacher and a security guard were included in the death toll and 14 to 15 other students were injured.)

Nothing InterestingToday

No education news today. Sorry!

By the way, if any of you web surfers come across any interesting articles or info that you feel that all students, parents, and school officials should achknowledge, feel free to email me at short_nicholas@yahoo.com.

Billions added on For Education (And Bush Isn't Happy)

A New York Times Article reveals that President Bush's plans to limit the amount of money used for education may be in jepordy thanks to a new budget that was passed by the Senate on Thursday. Votes from both Democratic and Republican (is there fricton between Bush and his G.O.P bretheren?) members of the Senate call for $5.4 billion to be used to shape up our nation's schools.

But, luckily for Bush, the House of Representives have plans of their own and they are very similar to his budget plans. The Senate and the House might have a showndown soon. Whose plan will be used for our schools?

Head Start needs Head Start In Cleaning Up It's Act

Remember the Government Accountablity Office (GAO) and their efforts to encourage the FCC to improve the E rate program? Well, they're back. This time, they are ticked off about the terrible way that the government is handling the Head Start program-a federal preschool program for underprivileged children. The GAO claims that a the program has been suffering from finanical troubles for several years and the government has done nothing to fix the problems.

The GAO says that the government allows Head Start centers to simply say that they have fixed their money issues instead of examining them closely to make sure that their records are efficent.

No More Bumping and Grinding for Texas High School Cheerleaders

This USA Today article will give hope to all parents and despair to horny teenage boys (and a few teenage girls). A new bill that outlaws sexy, seductive cheerleading performances in high school sporting events and other activities.

Texas legislator Al Edwards, who's leading the attack against sex in cheerleading performances, said:

It's just too sexually oriented, you know, the way they're shaking their behinds and going on, breaking it down and then we say to them, 'don't get involved in sex unless it's marriage or love, it's dangerous out there' and yet the teachers and directors are helping them go through those kind of gyrations.

It's Not All High School's Fault

Diane Ravitch, a research professor of education at New York University, believes that the reasons that education in America is so bad is not because high schools doesn' t educate children. It is because children who start high school are so uneducated that high school doesn't know what to do with them. According to Ravitch, nearly 70 percent of arriving freshman in high school are reading below grade level. The percentage of freshman who lack the proper skills in mathematics, science and history are huge as well.

Ravitch has several idea's on how to improve our education system. Read her editorial in the washington post to find out what they are.

A Little Q and A with Sharon Grover

If you were intrigued by my March 14 post, Math is from Mars, Books are from Venus, then check out this Washington Post transcript with Sharon Grover, a youth services selections specialist at the Arlington Public Library in Virgina. In an online chat with the Post, she answers important questions involving ways that to help young boys enhance their reading skills. Here's a sample:

Alexandria, Va.: Dear Ms. Grover, I am a children's book writer. Do you think it matters whether the book's main character is a boy or girl? My husband thinks that if it's a girl, boys won't read it and vice versa. I think a good story stands by itself.

Sharon Grover: Generally speaking, boys seem more attracted to books about boys, and I've rarely met a boy who willingly reads a story without boys in it. On the other hand, boys as well as girls are drawn into books like Lois Lowry's Number the Stars, which proves that good story theory of yours.

FCC Being Accused of Wardrobe...I mean, Internet Malunction

In front of a congressional panel on Wednesday, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) introduced a report stating that the E-rate program-a $2.25 billion program designed to provide affordable Internet access and connection gear to libraries and schools, especially those in poor and remote areas, across the nation- has serious flaws.

According to the GAO's report, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), who delegates day-to-day management of E-rate to the nonprofit Universal Service Administrative Company, doesn't have useful performance goals to measure the program's success and has been slow to respond to audits of E-rate participants. In a CNN.com report, the GAO says that the FCC's screw-ups "create barriers to enforcement, uncertainty about what the program's requirements really are, and questions about the soundness of the program's structure and accountability amid recent cases of fraud, waste and abuse."

Hi Yo Ruthie, Away!!!

Remember when, on TV sitcoms, parents used to complain to their children that they had to walk fifteen miles to school each day when they were children? Well, 9-year-old student Saje Beard from Bismark, North Dakota, rides about 15 miles to her school each day on her mule, Ruth.

OK, so walking 15 miles is worse, but everyone (ESPECIALLY STUDENTS!!!) have to admit that driving to school is much, much, much better. Check out Sajie in the picture below.

The Circle of Academic Dilemma

What does the title of this post mean?

It means that a bizarre merry-go-round that exists within America's school system might be the reason why the majority of our schools are in such deep trouble. A survey involving prinicpals from elementary and secondary schools in the U.S. says that nine out of ten prinicipals say that graduates from college and universities don't have what it takes to handle today's classrooms.

Nearly 80 percent of our nation's principals consider education school to be "too detached from what went on at local elementary and high schools" and about half of them also say that education courses at both graduate and undergraduate schools "lacked academic rigor and were outdated, at times using materials decades older than the children whom teachers are now instructing."


Let's do a quick review at our current state of the America's schools:

Public schools in general are doing a less-than-stellar job of preparing students for colleges that do a less-than-stellar job of preparing (eduation) students for public schools.

Wow.

Math is from Mars, Books are from Venus

When it comes to learning, there are a few ways that boys are different from girls, and several educators (and Laura Bush) believe that those differences should change. The educators say that, compared to girls, boys have very weak reading skills.

While some people believe that the problem with boys and books isn't that serious, others like Jon Scieszka, author of the "The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales," and founder of the Web site www.guysread.com-a website dedicated to encouraging boys to be more interested in reading-say that boys need to run to their nearest library ASAP. After conducting nation-wide tests for 25 years, Scieszka and his crew has discovered that "that boys are doing worse than girls" when it comes to reading.

There have also been "sometimes fierce" debates over how girls are lacking in math and science.

History Coming Alive

I wish more history teachers (and teachers in general) were like Lindy Poling and Cathy Bonneville Hix.

Poling, from Millbrook High in Raleigh, North Carolina, feels that students need to view crucial moments in history through the eyes of those who lived through them. So, she brings 20 speakers each year, including TV anchorman and Vietnam veteran Larry Stogner who served as a radio operator at Bien Hoa during the 1968 Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War, to herLessons of Vietnam/Recent International Relations (LOV/RIR) class. Hix, a Swanson Middle School (Arlington, Virgina) teacher, created the Battle of Bon-Air, a Civil War reenactment with seven-grade students playing the roles of Union and Confederate soldiers.

SATs: The Day After

The SATs have been on this planet for 67 years and it is still a headache to students. This year, however, a new SAT has been created and about 330,000 students across the nation have taken the new SAT yesterday (March 12).

Several colleges believed that the original format of the test was "not rigorous enough and a poor indicator of student achievement and is seriously considering dumping it from their admissions requirement, says a washington post article.

What's different about the new test? Well, the new test includes a critical reading section with short and long passages, a writing section with 35 minutes allotted for multiple-choice questions and 25 minutes for the essay, a more advanced math section with third-year college-preparatory math problems, and a new scoring scale (The perfect SAT score has leaped from 1600 to 2400) .

Here are the SAT testing calendar and fees (from the College Board's website) for those who weren't able to be a part of the March 12 event.

Also...

Check out how Jordan Rosenfeld, a junior at Seneca Valley High School in Germantown, Maryland (Shown in the picture below), prepared for the brand new SATs.



Click on the picture!!!

Yet Another Cool Website for YOU!!

I was surfing the net this afternoon, looking for something interesting, when I discovered a weblog that's perfect for everyone who is furious at the ridiculous, over-sensitive methods that U.S. schools and our American government use to "protect" our nation's children: Zero Intellegence! Founder, contributor, and site owner Jim Peacock grew weary of the zero tolerance policies that have plaqued are schools since the 1990s. He says that the policies have a "total lack of compassion, fairness, and attention to the details of a particular violation."

Jim's blog, which has been around the Net since January of 2004, features real stories from news websites that involve such mind-boggling incidents such as a fourth-grade student in Connecticut being suspended for 10 days and facing explusion because his mother had packed a Boy Scout utensil kit with his lunch or a teacher in Florida being reassigned with charges filed against her for showing students a knife and then plunging it into a stack of papers on a student's desk (would a student get off so easily?).

The law can really be a pain sometimes.

Latest Government News

Two new March 10 press releases from the U.S. Department of Education has been brought to my attension, and both of them are very intriguing.

Most people, especially college recruiters, believe that a student's senior and junior year of high school are the years that students should take seriously, but they may change their minds once they read a press release revealing that, in 2002, 72 percent of America's sophmores planned to get a bachelor's degree or higher and most (83 percent) rated getting a good education as "very important." This fact as well as many other interesting facts came from A Profile of the American High School Sophomore in 2002, released by the Department's National Center for Education Statistics.

After reading the release, maybe you all can check out the online version of A Profile of the American blah, blah, blah by going to http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2005338 .


The other press release involves President Bush's $56 billion Education Budget. Thursday, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings strongly urged the House of Representatives to approve the budget, which includes the Bush's $1.24 billion High School Intervention initiative, $200 million for the Striving Readers program (a $175 million increase over 2005), $120 million for a new Secondary Education Mathematics initiative, and much, much more.

Racial Gap in Schools Still Remains Strong

An article in the New York Times website reveals statistics showing that, in the schools in New York State, white students dominated the Regants exams (which now required for graduation), while minority students are dragging behind. Coming from the University of the State of New York, this data very disturbing to state education commissioner, Richard P. Mills, who said, "The minority four-year graduation rates are too low, unacceptably low."

Here's one these statistics:

• 81 percent of white students who started high school in the fall of 2000 graduated in June, as scheduled, only 45.4 percent of black students and 42 percent of Hispanic students did.

Very disappointing.

New Website!!!!

Hellooooooo, students and parents!

It you need assistance in preparing for college, paying for college, finding jobs and internships, helping your community, or joining our country's military force, then has our government got a website for you! It's students.gov! Try cruising through the site to see if there is anything interesting.

African-American Parents Fight for Diversity in Schools

In Montgomery County (Maryland), the African American Parents of Magnet School Applicants, a group of African-American parents who are fed up with the lack of diversity in specialized magnet schools in the area, demands that the county school board must stop the admissions process until more minorities are allowed in their schools. The group has a there-year review of data that reveals that most of these schools are dominated by white children. Read this washington post article for more details.

Bad Weekend

I'm VERY, VERY, VERY SORRY for not posting for the past few days!!!

I had a very busy weekend. (Work + Graduate School = Serious Headache!)

Hopefully, this weekend news review will make up for it:

On Saturday, March 5......

Apparently, nothing worth mentioning has happened.


On Sunday, March 6......

Florida tries out a healthier school lunch menu.

Utah tries to keep the "No Child Left Behind" Law from crossing its borders.


On Monday, March 7.....

Schwarzenegger vowed to terminate (get it?) junk food in schools.

Schools and the EPA vowed to ban mercury from schools.

Brownsville elementary school vowed to prevent rat droppings and urine from disrupting their classes.

Parents vowed to help their children ace the SATs (and money was no object).

Enjoy!!!

How to kick the SAT's butt

It's safe to say that nearly everyone knows that the SATs and ACTs are extremely important to colleges. Is it fair that one test can keep a student from pursuing his dreams and enhancing his education? Absolutely not! However, whether we like it or not, standardized tests still have the power to make or break your children's future. But do not worry, my friends, because in a March 1 article of washingtonpost.com, Washington Post edcuation columnist Jay Mathews offer six easy steps to ace the SATs:

1. Don't forget to bring three sharpened pencils and a watch.
2. Don't overthink it.
3. Use short sentences with active verbs.
4. Don't be afraid to cross out bad stuff.
5. Be personal.
6. Entertain.

A Rude Awakening

If teenagers think high school is a pain in the $#@, what 'til they go to college. If you REALLY want know what college will be like, please read this USNews and World Report article by Ramin Setoodeh.

Also....

USNews has an online version of the 2005 edition of America's Best Colleges that parents and students can buy.

Boredom Beware!

Tonight, I was standing at a bus stop (on 62nd & Halsted St. in Chicago) when I noticed a poster. The poster was a picture of a boy who's playing basketball in his livingroom-which is full of valuable, breakable things-and is about to make a slam dunk into a bucket located on a high shelf. There is caution tape running across the picture. On the tape reads the words "don't try this at home." (The poster would be more funnier if you see it for your self.)

The poster is an ad for afterschoolscene.com , a web site sponsored by the Afterschool Alliance-a non-profit organization whose mission to offer kids fun and constructive activities that will stop them from roaming the streets and getting into trouble.

The web site features several events, activities, and other goodies to keep students busy after the final school bell rings.

[Note: Right now, afterschoolscene.com is featuring a petition that will keep music programs in schools. If you want to sign up, check out it front page or better yet go to click themusicedge.com.]

Children vs. Cash

Berkeley's teachers are strike! The Berkeley (California) school district has been crippled by ticked off teachers who are fed up with their pay checks. The attack is led by the Until they receive a raise, the teachers refuse to do their jobs. Things are so bad that one middle-school had to use parents instead of its staff to run its science fair. Schoolwork is being ignored. Parents are frustrated. Students, who are caught in the middle of this battle for higher pay, may lose their opportunity to have a bright, wonderful future.

And, according to District Superintendent Michele Lawrence...





...its all the Terminator's fault!

Read this USA Today web article for more details.