Daily EducationNews.org
Friday, April 21, 2006

Arizona Republic
13 schools earn A+ in awards program
The Arizona Educational Association gave away awards under the A+ Schools of Excellence category. Of the 30 schools that participated, 13 earned the 2006 Excellence award, and three received an ''A+ Exemplary Programs'' award.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution
FBI detains Tech student
Pakistan native's family says authorities suspect video he made is linked to terrorism.

Public schools have ally in church group
By JAMES EVANS
why it is all the more amazing to learn that a Baptist entity has decided that instead of attacking public schools, we should affirm the work of those who teach our children and ask God to bless their efforts.

Baltimore Sun
Charter schools struggle to survive
Problems with locations, administrators, highlight challenges to starting an institution

Boston Globe
State widens teaching of abstinence
Romney gives faith group sex ed grant
Governor Mitt Romney yesterday announced that the state will funnel nearly $1 million in federal funds to a faith-based organization to teach abstinence to public middle school students in a dozen more communities across the state.

Court: Schools can ban hurtful T-shirt slogans
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Public schools can bar clothing with slogans that are hurtful, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Thursday in the case of a student who wore a T-shirtsaying "Homosexuality is shameful."

Chicago Tribune 
Study paints bleak picture of CPS grads' college success
Of every 100 freshmen entering a Chicago public high school, only about six will earn a bachelor's degree by the time they're in their mid-20s, according to a first-of-its-kind study released Thursday by the Consortium on Chicago School Research.

Christian Science Monitor 
India's B-School grads now rake in the big rupees
Mulitnational corporations now place a premium on Indian talent, which ranks among the best in the world. By Anuj Chopra

On Earth Day, hope for the environment
There's good news to report this year, a sharp contrast to the first celebration 36 years ago. By Brad Knickerbocker

Contra Costa Times
Asian Americans biggest group at UC
By Matt Krupnick, CONTRA COSTA TIMES
Asian-American students admitted outnumber other groups for first time as applications hit high; university system seeks more diversity.

Dallas Morning News
Police taking on bigger role in school incidents
The track team's towel fight started with the usual pops and taunts. It ended when 15-year-old Colby Long was pulled from his class, handcuffed and taken to jail. Police say the high school freshman committed assault; his parents contend officials overreacted to boyhood roughhousing.

Deseret News
Oh say, do we know words to national anthem?
Oh say, can local residents sing the nation's anthem? That's what the National Anthem Project wants to find out during its visit to the Salt Palace Convention Center this week.

Herald Tribune
Fourth-, eighth-graders improve FCAT scores
An increased focus on writing in the classroom has helped more students here and across the state do well on that part of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test this year.

Houston Chronicle
Perry chases votes for tax package in special session

Baylor warns students against posing for Playboy

TSU's Slade seeks hearing over her pending dismissal

HISD to pay $60 million for repairs

HISD, Alief schools seek more funds for displaced students

Inside Higher ED
Beyond 40 Acres and a Mule  
Historians consider their role in reparations debate - and why debate won't go away.

Drug Ring Encircles 'Clean' Campus  
Utah's religious Snow College faces difficult realities surrounding student drug abuse.

Law Deans Criticize Their Accreditor  
Group seeks to force ABA to change standard requiring tenure or similar protection for clinical professors and librarians

Ledger
Mom, Dad Still Help After College
At 23, Jason McGuinness lives a postcollege life in Manhattan that is very nearly typical. He works as a media research analyst, making about $30,000 a year.

Lexington Herald-Leader
Going to prom willingly but not excitedly
By Merlene Davis, HERALD-LEADER COLUMNIST
Nearly everything in our older son's social life changes overnight, which doesn't seem to phase him in the least. After first vowing not to go to the prom, he agreed to go alone and in a pastel tuxedo. Now, he has decided to go to the prom with a date.

Los Angeles Daily News
Time to set things straight in LAUSD
Tony Strickland: Every parent in Los Angeles has a right to ask, "What's going on with our schools?" 

Talk is cheap
Our mayor's first State of the City address regarding education reform was logical and much needed.  

Los Angeles Times
Mayor Puts Spotlight on Charter
By Joel Rubin
State of the City address offered lavish praise for alternative campus that could be a model in proposed L.A. Unified takeover.

Miami Herald
FCAT writing scores tell the stories of improvement
BY MATTHEW I. PINZUR
Scores on Florida's annual writing test inched up again this year, continuing a years-long trend and reaching all-time highs for most students.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Mumps shots a must for college students
All students who have not been immunized prior to attending college are urged to get a mumps shot, and the Milwaukee Health Department is recommending that all colleges and universities in the Milwaukee area set up vaccination clinics.

New York Times
Connecticut Senate Votes to Ban Soda Sales in the State's Schools
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The legislation would allow school vending machines and stores to stock only low-fat and nonfat milk, soy or rice milk, and 100 percent fruit and vegetable drinks.

New York's School for Scandal Sheets
By MARK CALDWELL
Compared to the usual practices of New York's gossip-mad newspapers back in the buccaneering 1800's, the New York Post's gossip column mess looks pallid.

Orlando Sentinel
Lift the veil
Conscientious kids routinely bring home their graded papers and, with their parents, review the items marked as incorrect. The students learn from their mistakes and are better prepared next time.

Palm Beach Post
Students post FCAT reading gains
Local elementary and middle schools see scores improve; some high schools fall

'Genius', 18, accused of grade shift
Police say Jeff Yorston used employee passwords to change friends' grades.

FDLE head quits; sit-in ends
Reports of Guy Tunnell's resignation follow the end of a student protest.

Great state universities start with more money

Philadelphia Daily News
Vallas OKs building of school on gravesite
By MENSAH M. DEAN
The old Franklin Cemetery - turned Franklin playground - isn't too ghoul for a school after all. Upon discovering that human graves remained under the abandoned playground, the school district's chief executive officer, Paul Vallas, said last month that there was no way he would build a new Frances E. Willard School on the Kensington site.

Philadelphia Inquirer
School sued for religion policy
Downingtown students say a ban on antigay expression violates their free-speech rights.
By Dan Hardy, Inquirer Staff Writer
Three students of a high school prayer club have sued the Downingtown Area School District, saying they were illegally barred from displaying the words Christian and Bible and expressing their views on the "sinful nature and harmful effects of homosexuality."

City schools are accused of ignoring parents
By Susan Snyder, Inquirer Staff Writer
The Philadelphia School District has failed to involve parents in its plans to improve failing schools as required under federal law, a complaint filed by a public-interest group said yesterday.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Results of school contract revote due tonight
Officials of the Pittsburgh Public Schools will find out tonight whether teachers and other professional employees voted -- on the second go-around -- to approve a two-year contract considered critical to Superintendent Mark Roosevelt's academic agenda.

Rocky Mountain News
Pastors enlist big gun on school closing
A group of black and Hispanic ministers has enlisted a prominent attorney to explore whether the Denver school board violated students' civil rights when it voted to shutter the predominantly minority Manual Educational Complex.

Saint Paul Pioneer Press
Threat closes high school
Similar bomb call also clears junior high for an hour
BY MEGAN BOLDT, Pioneer Press
Woodbury High School sent students home Thursday morning after someone left a telephone message saying there was a bomb in a locker.

San Antonio Express-News
High school grads not set for college
Higher education board discusses strategies to tackle the problem.
The top 10 percent of the class is headed to college. The rest are lucky to pass the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, the standardized test required for graduation.

Boerne questions AG on 'Robin Hood'
School officials want to know if it's legal for them to participate in a school finance system that the Texas Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional.

Groups rap legislators' focus on tax relief instead of education
Meanwhile, committee approves increases to raise $4 billion a year.

San Diego Union Tribune 
Bersin reappointed to board
SACRAMENTO - The reappointment of state Education Secretary Alan Bersin to the state Board of Education was confirmed by a Senate committee yesterday, despite union opposition stemming from his years as head of San Diego schools.

Seattle Times 
Students give up spring break to refresh math skills for WASL
Anthony Esposo recognized that the two lines on the geometry problem were parallel, but he didn't know how to put his understanding into...

Star Tribune
Teaching takes a virtual twist
High-tech computer games are adding interest and intensity to college coursework.

St. Petersburg Times 
Education chief fires back
Commissioner John Winn says questions about qualifications of FCAT graders are "a shady attempt to discredit" the state test.

Tallahassee Democrat
Parents meet Bush; students to march
Students who had been protesting for more than a day outside the governor's office held hands and sang "We Shall Overcome" as Gov. Jeb Bush met Thursday with the family of Martin Lee Anderson.

Leon students ace FCAT writing
Leon County students aced the writing portion of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test this year.

USA Today 
5 Kan. teens jailed in shooting plot
RIVERTON, Kan. Five teenage boys accused of plotting a shooting rampage at their high school on the anniversary of the Columbine massacre were arrested Thursday after details of the alleged scheme appeared on the website MySpace.com.

Washington Post
Board Insists on Relocating Seven Locks
Montgomery County school officials says that their plan to replace Seven Locks Elementary School with a new building on Kendale Road remains the best option to ease overcrowding in the Potomac area.

'No Child' Law Raises Segregation Fear
Many experts believe the No Child Left Behind is confounding an effort to eliminate the racial achievement gap on standardized annual tests

Wichita Eagle
Students arrested in plot to kill
BY MARCUS KABEL, Associated Press
Five teenage boys accused of plotting to kill other students in a shooting rampage at their southeast Kansas high school were arrested Thursday after details of the alleged scheme appeared on MySpace.com.

International Articles

The Australian
PM canes 'rubbish' postmodern teaching
JOHN Howard believes the postmodern approach to literature being taught in schools is "rubbish" and is considering tying education funding to ending the "gobbledegook" taught in some states.

Schools teaching rubbish, says Howard
THE English syllabus taught in Australian schools was being dumbed down by "rubbish" post modern texts, Prime Minister John Howard said today.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
Men 'worried to take up teaching'
Fewer men in NI are going into teaching because they worry they will be labelled as paedophiles, a union says.

Failing students given pass marks
University students with exam marks as low as 26% were given pass grades, documents reveal.

The Globe and Mail
N.B. partly lifts school ban on Bible distribution
Moncton -- A provincial ban on distributing religious material in New Brunswick schools has been partly lifted, meaning Grade 5 students may be able to go back to collecting a free New Testament from the Gideons.

The Gulf Times
IPC seminar begins at Al Jazeera Academy
THE International Primary Curriculum (IPC) Regional Conference began at the Al Jazeera Academy (AJA) yesterday. The three-day event is aimed at providing introductory training to teachers who wish to discover more about the IPC concept. Delegates from the UK, US, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar are attending.

Students feted at VCUQ annual awards ceremony
A LARGE gathering of students, staff, faculty, family members and friends lauded achievers at the annual awards ceremony of the Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar (VCUQ).

The Guardian 
Police check on nursery after baby chokes to death
Education: Nursery faces police investigation over death of 10-month-old girl who apparently choked on a piece of apple.

The Independent (UK)
Creationist descends on Britain to take debate on evolution into the classroom
A leading creationist who claims to use science to prove the Bible's version of how the Earth was made begins a controversial tour of Britain today.

Women better at finding jobs
Male graduates are far more likely to remain unemployed than females, according to research published yesterday.