Daily EducationNews.org
Monday, April 3, 2006

Akron Beacon-Journal
Ohio to pay online school
By Dennis J. Willard and Doug Oplinger
Enrollment review, audits of three years show state owes $263,000 to private ECOT
The Ohio Department of Education has agreed to pay the state's largest online charter school about $263,000 after three years of audits and an enrollment review revealed the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow is owed the money.

Arizona Republic
Students explore Chavez's history, impact
Gabriela Zamora's late grandfather shared stories about his hero, Cesar Chavez, with her.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution
More parents opt to join teens on spring break travels
Some are headed to Florida, others to New Orleans to help families recover from Hurricane Katrina. But wherever teenagers are going for spring break this year, many will have a parent tagging along.

Baltimore Sun
Few deny schools need change
11 in city targeted for takeover have low test scores
La'Chelle Alston, 14, stood before the Baltimore school board in late February and asked for help at her school, Chinquapin Middle.

Records closed to auditors
Balto. Co. officials looking for nonresident students in schools

Charlotte Observer
She sees scientists in her 6th-graders
Janice Ward strives to transform her field, mold skilled students
In a tiny wetland in the shadow of Interstate 485, scientists are cataloguing wildlife to publish a field guide.

Contra Costa Times
Fifth-graders learn to go beyond misconceptions
By Lisa Fernandez, KNIGHT RIDDER
The fifth-graders met for the first time Monday and acted like kids anywhere. They sat at desks in a San Jose classroom, asking each other, "What's your favorite color?" And "What music do you like?" They played basketball. They ate sweet rolls.

Deseret News
Students multiply applications
Swati Rao rushes home from West High School each day to check her mailbox, hoping for a fat envelope welcoming her to college. So far, Rao has not been disappointed.

Hartford Courant
School Chief Seeks 3.2% Hike In Budget
Hartford Superintendent of Schools Robert Henry is proposing a 3.2 percent increase in the education budget for fiscal year 2006-07.

Houston Chronicle
High-tech gear helped West Brook students get news on crash fast
Last week's fatal crash focused a sharp lens on how teens communicate and how information is exchanged in the aftermath of a disaster.

The fix for Texas schools starts with new Three R's
Think reform, reinvent and reinvest for academic success
By JAY AIYER
THERE is little debate that our education system in Texas is broken. Our dropout rate in public schools is now estimated at more than 40 percent. That number is even larger among our Latino and African-American students.

Indianapolis Star-Tribune
Boy turns in knife but may still be expelled
Family says Warren Township eighth-grader is being punished too harshly for doing the right thing A Far-Eastside couple say they are stunned that a Warren Township Schools principal suspended their son and recommended his expulsion for possession of a pocketknife even though he turned the knife in to the office as soon as he arrived at school.

Inside Higher ED
Fresh Approach to Accountability  
Major public universities consider a new system for measuring and comparing quality in undergraduate education.

A New Faith at Catholic Colleges  
Muslim students arrive in significant numbers - ready to engage in campus life while maintaining their own identities.

A Gift Unearths a Rift  
NYU's plan for $200 million institute on antiquity renews debate over collecting of ancient objects

Ledger
School Revolution May Be on Horizon
TALLAHASSEE -- Talk is cheap in the Florida House, where would-be orators struggle to be heard over the constant buzz of chatter from their colleagues

Los Angeles Daily News
More schools go to traditional calendar
GLENDALE - Glendale Unified School District will move two more schools off a year-round schedule and back to a traditional calendar this fall, as declining enrollment continues to free up space at the once overcrowded district.

Los Angeles Times
Tough act that follows
Susan King The new Antonio Banderas movie "Take the Lead," which opens Friday, is inspired by the story of Pierre Dulaine, an award-winning ballroom dancer who is the director of the Dancing Classrooms program in the New York City public schools. The program, which was profiled in the 2005 documentary "Mad Hot Ballroom," teaches dancing to underprivileged fifth-graders.

Stupid naming rules
A silly squabble over naming L.A. schools.
LOS ANGELES SCHOOLS HAVE so many real things to worry about - dropout rates and test scores, to name two - that the brewing brouhaha over the naming of a new high school seems a needless distraction.

Miami Herald
School plans differ widely
South Florida schools would get more funding under the budget being pushed by the Republican-controlled Senate than from the school spending plan expected to be approved this coming week by the House.
By GARY FINEOUT
Miami-Dade schools chief Rudy Crew would like to have enough money in the coming year to boost teacher salaries, hire more teachers

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Schools, teachers tighten their belts
Greendale School District's 'wellness initiative' is winning rave reviews for its success in helping teachers - and school budgets - get into better shape.

UW researcher doubts autism epidemic
But expert says tally of cases may be too low
Despite warnings of a national explosion in cases of autism, there's little data to substantiate such a claim, according to new research compiled by a University of Wisconsin-Madison scientist.

New York Daily News 
Pol outraged by school sex
A Brooklyn legislator vowed to step up efforts to make any sex between educators and students illegal - even if the student is old enough to consent.

New York Post
TALK TO US FIRST: POL TO ED. DEPT.
By DAVID ANDREATTA Education Reporter A Harlem assemblyman wants the city to give lawmakers a year's heads-up before creating a school in an existing building.

New York Times
In Death of Bronx Charter School, a Wider Problem
By ELISSA GOOTMAN
Charter schools' greatest assets - freedom and flexibility - can allow operators to get in over their heads.

Palm Beach Post
E-mail overloading professors
While e-mail has benefits, some long for days when access meant just office hours.

Cut-rate rehabilitation ruining juvenile justice
What happens when you try to rehabilitate youth in trouble with the law on the cheap? It doesn't work. The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice continues to ignore that fact, despite an abundance of proof among the more than 95,000 youth under its supervision.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Home and Away: Serendipity plays key role when picking a college
There is talk of planting Justin Chalker's name on a highway sign in Meade, Kan., pop. 1,600, to celebrate the farming town's first Rhodes Scholar.

College choices: Some find far horizons more alluring
Mary Buchy of Mechanicsburg, Cumberland County, expects by this fall to have sent three of her children off to colleges in South Dakota.

Psychiatric needs rising on campuses
Nine percent of college students in North America sought psychiatric or psychological counseling last year, continuing an upward trend in those on campus seeking help, a University of Pittsburgh-sponsored study says.

Rocky Mountain News
Growing school district in a jam
The state's fastest-growing school district is struggling to maintain services, six months after voters turned down a tax increase and refused to authorize bonds for more buildings.

Sacramento Bee
Top students match wits, vision
The first thing you notice at an Odyssey of the Mind competition is the headgear.

Saint Paul Pioneer Press
Big podcasts on campus
Hamline and other Minnesota schools are taking advantage of iPod-like music players to bring everything from classroom lectures to chapel services to wider audiences via the Internet.
Big-name guest speakers such as Gov. Tim Pawlenty regularly appear at Hamline University's School of Law in St. Paul. But, until recently, relatively few people heard the speeches.

Salt Lake Tribune
Female enrollment growth worries colleges
The nation's elite private schools are regularly doing what would once have been unthinkable: bypassing qualified women for less qualified male students.

San Antonio Express-News
College program gains accreditation
Graduates help community members

Pharmacy college awaiting students
Pair tell of frustrations about the delay at A&M-Kingsville.

San Jose Mercury 
Pondering the preschool ballot
ROB REINER'S EARLY-LEARNING INITIATIVE POSES TWO MAJOR QUESTIONS AND MANY MORE MINOR ONES
California voters have 10 weeks before the June 6 primary vote on Proposition 82, Rob Reiner's multibillion-dollar public preschool proposal.

Seattle Times 
SPU might shut down computer curriculum
Computers have been around so long at Seattle Pacific University that an enterprising teenager named Bill Gates once wrote programs there...

Standard
Factoring fun into math
Educators are trying to get students excited about math at an early age so basic skills are learned well before the college years begin.

St. Louis Post Dispatch 
For the schools, the business interest that matters is the people's business
by Sylvester Brown Jr.
It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business."
Michael Corleone's infamous line from "The Godfather" came to me recently, after talking with political operative Richard Callow.

Tallahassee Democrat
Universities won't get what they want
It's the equivalent of eating your peas, and the Legislature isn't swallowing

Wall Street Journal
A Ivory Tower Stonewall
A 9/11 survivor asks Yale to explain why it admitted the Taliban Man.
by John Fund
Katherine Bailey and her sister, Margaret Pothier, have a bone to pick with Yale President Richard Levin over his university's admission of a former Taliban official as a student.

Washington Post
Area Families Pinched As Private Tuitions Soar
Tuition at some of the region's elite private schools will exceed $26,000 this fall, sparking new worries about how to attract middle- and low-income students and recruit more minorities.

Washington Times
Immigration bill proposes in-state tuition for illegals
By Charles Hurt
The immigration bill now under consideration in the Senate would grant even a broader amnesty to illegal aliens than similar legislation did in 1986, conservatives say, and would make hundreds of thousands of illegal residents eligible for in-state tuition at public colleges and universities.

Wichita Eagle
Olympiad finds kids 'mesmerized by science'
BY JILLIAN COHAN, The Wichita Eagle
The ball bearing started its path smoothly down the ramp. Then, heartbreakingly, it stopped. "Touch," Lucy Orsi said. Hands shaking, she urged the ball back on its path through an intricate maze of levers, pulleys, ramps and wedges.

Wilmington News Journal

WorldNet Daily

International Articles

The Age
Julie Bishop, your time starts now...
There's no shortage of advice for the new federal Education Minister. Our panel of experts name her top priorities.

Poor pay drives men away
A new survey links a shortage of male teachers to low salaries, reports Caroline Milburn.

On the hunt for true blue pirates
Lab tests are luring students to science, writes Jennifer Cook.

The power of practice
How can a musician overcome stress and nerves in performance?

Secrets of the funny business
Leigh Parry reports on a crash course in comedy appreciation that will have you rolling in the aisles.

Musings of a tortured soul
Sylvia Plath's poetry takes precedence over her personal demons, writes Karen Ford.

Rights up for grabs
New workplace laws are causing outrage among workers, writes Ben Haywood.

Rainbow connection
Jennifer Cook visits a place where gay mums can share stories and hopes.

Third degree
Asbestos found in a building at Monash University's Frankston campus.

In the spotlight
Interview with Julie Bishop, Federal Minister for Education, Science and Training.

Campus chatter
Dr George Somers appointed to the Monash University School of Rural Health at the Bendigo Regional Clinical School.

Blog or you won't be read
Law schools need to be smart and think laterally about their research.

Quandary
It can sometimes be a mistake for students to be in too much of a hurry to take on advanced subjects.

The Australian
Curriculum changes 'lowering standards'
A YEAR 12 English exam that failed to penalise students for poor spelling or grammar and asked them to compare two film posters but not read a book was evidence of falling educational standards in Western Australia, the federal Government has declared.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
Prison teachers 'lose out on pay'
Tutors working in prisons are paid less than their colleagues and have poorer working conditions, a union claims.

Row over 'record' school head ads
Adverts for head teachers have hit a new record, analysts say - but the government disputes it.

Changing face of screen teachers
BBC education correspondent Mike Baker on what the portrayal of teachers on screen reveals.

The Gulf Times
EDUCATION EXHIBITION:
Dr Jehan al-Meer of the Supreme Education Council inaugurating the annual Edukex 2006, a UK education exhibition, at the Ramada Hotel yesterday, in the presence of Tony Jones, director of British Council, and Eric Mattey, charge d'affaires at the British embassy.

The Independent (UK)
How art of conversation between parents and children has died
All-day television, the demise of the family meal and even the forward-facing design of pushchairs are conspiring to kill the art of conversation between parents and children. The results have "alarming implications" for pupil behaviour in the first few years of primary school, says a pamphl
et to be published this week by the Basic Skills Agency (BSA) - the body responsible for improving literacy and numeracy.

Schools get asbestos warning
Schools are to get new guidance on dealing with asbestos today as figures reveal more than 100 teachers have died from contact with it over the past 20 years.

The Press New Zealand
Varsities lag on gender balance
South Island universities have ranked worst in New Zealand for the proportion of female senior academics on their staff, a new report shows.