Daily EducationNews.org
Wednesday, April 5, 2006

Arizona Republic
Kids have waited long enough
English-language-learners case: This is not about lawyers in spiffy courtrooms. Or the disagreements between lawmakers and the governor. It's about children. And they've been waiting long enough.

Boston Globe
School is told to restore 'Jesus' bricks
ALBANY, N.Y. -- A federal judge has ordered a public high school to return bricks inscribed with Christian messages to a walkway, concluding their removal violated the free speech rights of the people who paid for them.

Shoot for success
DERRICK Z. JACKSON
FLYING TO THE Final Four with 5 p.m. e-mail deadlines for classwork in women's studies, Mistie Williams and Wanisha Smith of Duke studied all the way from Durham, N.C., to their hotel room in Boston. Williams nearly panicked because at about 4 p.m. her Internet connection failed.

Charlotte Observer
Success in smaller district inspires bigger ideas
'He started winning some of the curmudgeons'
As Superintendent Peter Gorman walks through schools in this suburban Los Angeles district, he frequently stops.

Chicago Sun-Times
Students demand more security
At least 150 students played hooky from Kennedy High School on Tuesday to demand extra security in their Southwest Side school, saying they'd even welcome cops in the classroom to stem rising violence.

School may give minority pharmacists shot in arm
Kecia Thomas, of Roseland, has dreamed of becoming a pharmacist since she was a sophomore in high school.

School relents after banning pricey prom
NEW YORK -- Two Long Island high schools that canceled their senior proms after years of excess that included limos and weekend house rentals in the Hamptons announced a compromise Tuesday that will involve more modest arrangements.

Cleveland Plain Dealer
Charter audits: Debate open, records closed
Recently released audit reports for the state's biggest charter school operator raise at least two more questions than they settle on the matter of who's profiting from Ohio's alternative-school experiment:

Detroit Free Press
Detroit teachers rally over lost pay
Carrying signs that said, "We won't forget," several hundred Detroit Public Schools teachers rallied Tuesday and gave mixed predictions about whether many would call in sick today, in what could be the second so-called blackboard flu.

eSchool News
Thornburg: Ed tech stalled by 'fear'
Allowing time to experiment is one key to jump-starting educational technology
David Thornburg is an award-winning futurist, author, and consultant whose clients range across the public and private sectors worldwide.

Hartford Courant
Schools Act On Special Ed Concerns
Hartford's board of education voted Tuesday to hire consultants to help ensure 1,300 special education students who were returned to mainstream classrooms this year are getting the services they need.

Houston Chronicle
Study shows America's children fatter than ever
Despite years of warnings - and obvious signs - about the swelling girth of the nation's children, America has failed to address the burgeoning health problem, local researchers said Tuesday.

More spending by TSU president detailed
Priscilla Slade charged the school thousands of dollars last year for exercise classes and golf lessons, presents for employees and regents and a move across town to her new house near Memorial Park, records show.

Rice trying to woo more top students
$100 million scholarship effort aims to give the school an edge over Ivy League

Coach disciplined for distributing immigration protest flier at school
Rudy Rios was stripped of his duties as junior varsity baseball coach at Chavez High School last week after using a district copying machine to make a flier encouraging Latino students to attend a rally protesting restrictions on illegal immigration.

Indianapolis Star-Tribune
Warren won't expel teen who ceded knife
Eighth-grader's case drew national notice, cost his family about $2,500 in legal fees In the face of nationwide outrage, Warren Township school officials on Tuesday canceled disciplinary action against an eighth-grade student who had promptly turned in a pocketknife he found in his coat.

Inside Higher ED
The Gen X Professor  
The new cohort of scholars is not just younger and more diverse - new research suggests a values gap colleges need to address.

Innovation Overload  
Congressional advisory panel launches study to explore programs to help low- and moderate-income students graduate.

Renewing the Presidency  
Sabbaticals are common in higher education - for professors. Should more college chief executives take them?

Las Vegas Sun
Education reform turns icy
The relationship between Clark County Schools Superintendent Walt Rulffes and the executive director of the Council for a Better Nevada is verging on Cold War-icy  ... 

Lexington Herald-Leader
MMI to boot out boot camp image
STRUGGLING SCHOOL WILL DUMP NAME, MILITARY EMPHASIS TO BECOME CO-ED PREP

Newsday
Students join immigration protest
The battle over immigration spread today to Stony Brook University, where about 200 students, including some who walked out of classes, protested proposed federal legislation they described as an un-American, draconian crackdown on immigrants.

No average student show
A visiting troupe had Oyster Bay High School students clapping and laughing in assemblies last month with hip-hop and rock songs about tolerance. But when the group performed a second time at its Smithtown headquarters that night, the teens were surprised to find the second show promoting religion.

New York Daily News 
Harlem teach-in
Defying city orders, a free private school reopened in Harlem yesterday, greeting 10 of its students with a mixture of bravado and tears. "Welcome to our illegal school, our condemned, illegal school," Ned O'Gorman called out yesterday to the children and their parents.

Time to take on teachers union
Be Our Guest: About 1,300 city teachers responded last month to United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten's call for volunteers to join her in preparing for the next round of contract negotiations.

New York Post
B'KLYN TEACH CHARGED IN KID ASSAULT
By DAVID ANDREATTA and JAMIE SCHRAM A veteran special-ed teacher shook and choked a 10-year-old student he suspected of flinging a belt buckle at him, then bounced the boy's head against a wall inside a Brooklyn school, prosecutors charged yesterday.

New York Times
No Child Left Behind? Ask the Gifted
By MICHAEL WINERIP
Despite all the talk about America losing its edge in the global market, programs for the gifted and talented are threatened on several fronts.

Public vs. Private Schools: A New Debate
By ELISSA GOOTMAN
Two high-profile battles in New York City show how difficult it is to find space for charter schools in a city with expensive real estate.

New Jersey Medical School Gives Blatant Lesson in Spoils System
By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI
New Jersey's state medical school codified its highly elaborate system of political favoritism in a series of memos, e-mail messages and spreadsheets.

Philadelphia Daily News
Look for some cuts in $2B school budget
By MENSAH M. DEAN
The School District of Philadelphia will operate under a structurally balanced budget for a third consecutive year, school officials are expected to tell City Council today during the first of two days of school budget hearings.

Philadelphia Inquirer
Pa. House cuts Phila. schools money
Legislators rejected a proposal to continue a $25 million appropriation, in place since the state took over the district.
By Susan Snyder, Inquirer Staff Writer
Minutes after Philadelphia schools chief Paul Vallas presented the district's proposed $2.04 billion budget - which already includes cuts that have parents crying foul - he said the federal, state and city governments could do more to help the district.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Reconstruction reveals how Egyptian mummy may have looked in life
Considering her long life and even longer afterlife, it's not surprising that Westminster College's Egyptian mummy turns out to look more like a grandmummy.

Rocky Mountain News
Brown still high on list as CU nears final choice
The University of Colorado Board of Regents is expected to name at least one finalist for CU president tonight.

San Antonio Express-News
School district warns students about protests
Northside officials say students should be in the classroom learning

San Diego Union Tribune 
Education Fund also paid for parties
The San Diego Education Fund, a nonprofit established to benefit the San Diego Unified School District, is probably best known for granting scholarships to aspiring teachers.

Dance lessons helping kids with social skills, self-esteem
ALPINE - With the smooth sounds of Michael Bublé filling the auditorium, Justin Sullivan, 12, linked arms with Hannah Hickman, 10, who gave him a small smile.

San Francisco Chronicle
School board to vote on defying exit exam law
Simone Sebastian
Nearly 500 West Contra Costa high school seniors who have failed the mandatory California Exit Exam could receive diplomas anyway this June if a majority of the school board joins a colleague's call to rebel against the controversial graduation requirement.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer
UW looking beyond test scores, GPA
The University of Washington is no longer accepting students based primarily on grades and test scores. Now courses, clubs and a family's income may also be considered.

Seattle Times 
Seattle schools win NEA grant to bolster diversity
Collaboration and a commitment to helping minority and white students succeed academically helped Seattle win a $250,000 renewable grant...

St. Louis Post Dispatch 
Laura Bush salutes teens battling addictions
President's wife also praises U.S. Sen. Jim Talent at a fundraiser at downtown hotel.

St. Petersburg Times 
Senators: Teens can't drive, talk at same time
But the future is uncertain for the bill that would prevent those with learner's permits from using a cell phone.

Tallahassee Democrat
FSU has information down to a science
In a time of gluttonous appetites for information, Florida State University is a highly regarded place for learning how to access and organize the gazillion writings and data out there on the Internet and in the world

USA Today 
Third of kids tip scales wrong way Greatest number yet; more men are obese
By Nanci Hellmich
A third of U.S. children and teens - about 25 million kids - are either overweight or on the brink of becoming so, the highest number ever recorded, a government survey reports today.

Washington Post
GWU President Says He Will Step Down in 2007
Trachtenberg to end a nearly 20-year tenure to become president emeritus and a professor in the School of Public Policy and Public Administration in 2007.

Wichita Eagle
School courses add motorcycles, trades
BY ICESS FERNANDEZ, The Wichita Eagle
Heights and South high schools will start new technical programs this fall that could keep some students from dropping out, administrators said Tuesday.

Wilmington News Journal
Bill leads to charter schools debate
Republican lawmakers, predominantly from New Castle County, used a bill meant to establish school impact fees in Kent County to +open a debate about whether tax dollars should help pay for charter-school construction statewide.

International Articles

The Australian
Lessons lacking wonder of science
WHILE Year 8 science students in the Czech Republic are discussing nuclear reactions, their Australian peers are still watching litmus paper turn pink.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
School runs Sat test holiday camp
A school is running classes in the Easter holiday to help pupils do well in their Sat tests next term.

Closed private school axes jobs
Two hundred redundancy notices are handed out to staff at an independent school in administration.

College bids to sponsor academies
An FE college is pushing to take charge of two schools in one of the largest city academy projects to date.

The Daily Yomiuri 
Young workers lack verbal skills
Company presidents welcomed their new employees Monday by admonishing the younger generation for their perceived poor verbal skills, a problem many say continues to grow with the increasing use of e-mail and the Internet.

The Globe and Mail
Grads' anxieties ring familiar all through life
JUDITH TIMSON 
For graduating university students contemplating how to make the adjustments to "real life," now is the time when anxiety rises to stratospheric levels.

The Guardian 
Financial problems force private school to close
Education: Hundreds of pupils looking for new places after the sudden closure of their independent school.

The Gulf Times
Teachers warned against fleecing students on the pretext of tuitions
THE Bangladesh MHM School and College principal has reiterated that any teacher's attempt to make a quick buck on the pretext of helping weak students would not be tolerated.

The Peninsula
US fellowship for emerging leaders
DOHA: The US government-sponsored Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) has announced a Democracy Fellowship Programme for emerging leaders across the Middle East and North Africa.

The Press New Zealand
Worry over bully parents
Increasing numbers of teachers are feeling intimidated by parents, the Canterbury Principals' Association says.