I guess we're in the main-stream now. This story about baby-boomers changing the funeral business includes a comment on how boomers changed society:

"Many of the boomers wrote their own wedding vows, demanded rights to home-school their kids, natural birth and made us recycle. They're taking charge of funeral rituals as well,'' said Lisa Carlson, executive director at Funeral Consumers Alliance, a public advocacy group."

This one's pretty funny. Palm Beach County has instituted a county-wide final exam for its history classes. Passing score for this multiple choice test is 23% correct with an "B" set at 39%. Assuming there are 5 choices for each question, random guesses should come pretty close to passing.

It appears that today is Delaware's day to be in the spotlight. Students arrested for poison prank The kids put sodium hydroxide (aka lye) in their teacher's drink. If this was done as a joke they were just plain stupid. If not, they could have been facing murder charges. Lucky for all concerned the teacher didn't drink it.

Another DE-specific article 14% of students taking the DSTP will have to attend summer school this year.

"Of the students headed to summer school, 934 are third-graders, 955 are fifth-graders and 2,746 are eighth-graders."

Glenn Reynolds (aka InstaPundit) had an interesting article on teen sex which led to this response from homeschooler Dave Thomas (not of Wendy's fame).

80% of 4 year olds flunk kindergarten. Why then is the school district continuing the "experiment" to admit 4 year olds?

"[B]ecause districts didn't want to lose state money that follows students who might attend charter schools that allow younger students. Some also claim the move to 4-year-olds in kindergarten is fueled by parents' desire for free baby-sitting."

This PS teacher endorses unschooling (although he probably doesn't realize it).

"It is only the extent to which students are independent and self-directing that the student can be responsible himself and the teacher can be relieved of responsibility for the class as a whole to become a resource, helping each student individually and letting them be resourceful to one another."

This op-ed is one of those Delaware-specific ones. Al Mascitti has a short column on the problems the public schools are facing. He mentions homeschooling in the last sentence.

Isabel Lyman links to a couple of excellent articles today. A standout is this one entitled "Can a Feminist Homeschool?"

Year-round schooling for all Well, not really but close enough. It seems that 1/3 to 1/2 of all Baltimore PS students will be required to attend summer school this year. I don't know what to think about this. Why should we believe that the schools will be able to do in 6 weeks what they were unable to do in 9 months?

The Wash Post has a "human interest" type article on graduation tests. The premise: how do you account for learning-disabled students in these make-or-break tests?

A story out of Dallas reports on homeschoolers having graduation ceremonies (registration required to view the article).

Congressman Bob Barr is proposing to allow teachers (including HSers) up to $3000 in tax deductions and credits. Nice thought. Zero chance it will happen.

This Boston Herald story laments the state of U.S. history instruction. I have never understood the way our public schools teach history. On this year's NAEP, 4th graders were expected to have covered everything from the colonial period to Martin Luther King, Jr. If they spent more than one day on the Bill of Rights, I'd be astonished. How are kids expected to learn what it means to be an American when we spend so little time and effort on the most important documents and thoughts in our history? The "I have a dream" speech is great; the history of the AIM (American Indian Movement) is somewhat important; Teapot Dome is a sad commentary about the state of politics at the time. All of these pale in comparison to an understanding of the rights and responsibilities that come with being an American.

The NEA has published the results of a "scientific" poll. This one is a real hoot. The union found that 79% of the respondents would consider a teaching career. And whom, you may wonder, did they poll? An excellent question: they polled the people who visited the union's website. I'd bet that a fairly high percentage (maybe as high as 79%) of the visitors to that site are union members.

A lame-brained judge decided that it's ok for a female teacher to have sex with a 13-year-old male student. "I really don't see the harm that was done and certainly society doesn't need to be worried," Superior Court Judge Bruce Gaeta said. "Maybe it was a way for him, once this happened, to satisfy his sexual needs."

The Madison Press News reports on "Evolution vs. Intelligent Design" A quote: "Some members of the state board of education want to balance the theory of evolution in science texts with an alternate view. Others hold that there is no alternate view which is scientificly (sic) proven." [emphasis added] Err, guys, there's a reason it's called the theory of evolution.

The Denver post reports on a study that complicates the neighborhood schools movement- average student achievment goes up when schools are economically integrated (i.e., poor kids and rich kids go to school together).

Here's an interesting factoid: NY and NJ spend over $10k per student for public schools. Sen Christoper Dodd (D- Conn) has a somewhat worrisome quote: "A child's education should be determined by the size of their dreams, not the numbers of their ZIP code." I don't know if he is implying that there should be a federalization of public schools.

Sigh! Teacher arrested after aiding students with prank