The Choice Channel

“On an occasional evening at the kitchen table in Brooklyn, N.Y., Victoria Morey has been known to sit down with her 9-year-old son and do something she’s not supposed to. ‘I am a rebel,’ confesses this mother of two. And just what is this subversive act in which Morey engages — with a child, yet? Long division. Yes, Morey teaches her son, who’ll enter fifth grade in the fall, how to divide the old-fashioned way — you know, with descending columns of numbers, subtracting all the way down.” (07/15/08)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25694356/

“The speaker of the state House of Representatives can’t use excess House funds to pay for two private-school voucher programs axed in the state budget, according to an opinion released Wednesday by the Attorney General’s Office. House Speaker Jim Weiers announced last week a plan to use $5 million of about $9 million in a House contingency fund to pay for the programs, which provided scholarships to hundreds of disabled and foster-care children to attend private schools.” (07/16/08)

http://tinyurl.com/565grn

“If elected president, Senator McCain would support private school vouchers, give full funding to the federal No Child Left Behind law, and push for an expansion of ‘virtual schools,’ the Republican candidate said yesterday in unveiling his education plan during a speech to the NAACP. The promise to ‘fully fund’ No Child Left Behind was a departure; previously Mr. McCain has said he would freeze nondefense discretionary spending, including spending on education.” (07/16/08)

http://tinyurl.com/5ftqqd

“Deploying a long-promised tool to track high school dropouts, the state released numbers Wednesday estimating that 1 in 4 California students — and 1 in 3 in Los Angeles — quit school. The rates are considerably higher than previously acknowledged but lower than some independent estimates. The figures are based on a new statewide tracking system that relies on identification numbers that were issued to California public school students beginning in fall 2006.” (07/16/08)

http://tinyurl.com/62ze46

“School IT administrators know that some students will do anything to breach network security systems designed to block inappropriate web sites and keep students on task. When a group of school district IT chiefs met recently to discuss the challenges of reining in students armed with tech savvy and a determination to wreak network havoc, their tales were cautionary—but their advice could prove valuable as computers become more common in K-12 schools.” (07/15/08)

http://tinyurl.com/6zqp8v

“The National Association of College and University Business Officers is publishing a report today specifically designed for the handful of you who haven’t read absolutely every word Inside Higher Ed has published on the work of the Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education. … The report, ‘Assessing the Impact of the Spellings Commission: The Message, the Messenger, and the Dynamics of Change in Higher Education,’ exhaustively reviews the commission’s genesis, deliberations and recommendations in 2005-6; the Education Department’s efforts to carry out the panel’s work over the last two years; and the responses of those within higher education to all of the above.” (07/15/08)

http://tinyurl.com/5kfrzt

“The nation’s shortage of nurses continues to worsen, and the trend shows no signs of reversing — not because too few young people want to become nurses, but because there aren’t enough nursing teachers to train them, medical researchers and administrators say. Medical administrators have warned for years that the crunch was coming. As the shortage reaches crisis levels — estimated at a quarter-million by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, on its way to half a million by 2025 — the impact on mortality is stark.” (07/11/08)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25626353/

“About 200 parents waited in line Monday before the doors opened at the Dryades YMCA, all seeking a chance to send their children to private or parochial schools under the state’s first school voucher program, officials said. State Department of Education spokesman David Grubb said about 10 families arrived five hours before the 1 p.m. start time. Some people took time off work to apply in person for the Student Scholarships for Educational Excellence Program on the first of six days of the sign-up period, he said.” (07/14/08)

http://tinyurl.com/6zhpyf

“A high-profile push by American business groups to double the number of U.S. bachelor’s degrees awarded in science, math and engineering by 2015 is falling way behind target, a new report says. In 2005, 15 prominent business groups warned that a lack of expert workers and teachers posed a threat to U.S. competitiveness, and said the country would need 400,000 new graduates in the so-called STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields by 2015.” (07/15/08)

http://tinyurl.com/6gjltn

“Demonstrations on the town square show how divided people are over the school board’s decision to fire a science teacher accused of preaching his Christian beliefs in the classroom and burning crosses on students’ arms. John Freshwater, 52, was fired last month after an outside consulting firm released a report concluding that he taught creationism and was insubordinate in failing to remove a Bible and other religious materials from his classroom at Mount Vernon Middle School.” (07/08/08)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25585916/