Education Reform Central

All is DEFINITELY not well in Georgia education Back at the beginning of April, and then again in May, I told you about the threat of de-accreditation that Clayton County, Georgia Public Schools faced. Well, the first deadline passed and the county got a new Superintendent of Education (one of the prerequisites for continuing accreditation). But the problems with the Board ... Read More

Teenagers Can Be A Real Handful! Is your teenager giving you problems? Do you find yourself arguing constantly about clothes? curfew? anything? Does your teen grumble about chores? Are they constantly badgering you for a car, or to drive? Is this beginning to look like another school year from Hades? Finally, are you just plain tired of being the parent of a teenager? Well, I may have ... Read More

Teachers With Guns! Here to Stay? History was made in Harrold, Texas on the first day of the new 2008-2009 school year. For the first time anywhere in the USA, teachers are legally authorized to carry concealed weapons INTO school and the story is making the national news. Needless to say, there are very vocal supporters and opponents of this latest step towards ... Read More

Baltimore Art Teacher Beaten By StudentWhile Class Cheered Attacker On! I read an interesting article by Michelle Malkin on Townhall.com this morning. The article reports on a document released by the ACLU and Human Rights Watch that claims American schools are "torture chambers", where unruly students are brutalized. The report claims that students who misbehave are being "humiliated" and "beaten". Who's Beating ... Read More

School Is More Expensive This Year! The Atlanta Journal-Constitution posted an article about high gasoline prices and signs of recession impacting the 2008-2009 school year. The start of the new school year is usually a time of mixed pleasures and woes for students. While they hate to see summer end, new clothes and supplies have traditionally been some compensation to youngsters ... Read More

Alice for Fun Learning! Teaching Students to Program With Stories Alice is a 3D virtual worlds programming environment that makes it easy to create animations for either story telling or interactive games. Students can learn the intricacies of programming through enjoyable activities. Available for free download on the internet (provided by Carnegie Mellon), Alice has been used with 4th-6th grade youngsters on up ... Read More

Harvey Milk Do you know who Harvey Milk was? If you live in California and you don't know who he was, you will soon find out. According to the wording of Bill AB 2567: "He was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in a major city of the United States. He was assassinated in 1978 at San Francisco’s ... Read More

Advertising Alcoholic Beverages is Deadly! I have been watching the progress (or lack thereof) in the stated mission of EDin08.com because I am so vitally interested in improving our schools. With millions and millions of dollars behind them, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and others, EDin08 has a stated goal to make education an important issue in the upcoming ... Read More