In the lunchroom at Stowe Elementary School in Duluth, Minn., forlorn piles of half-eaten sandwiches and bruised bananas are transformed from trash to treasure.
Instead of tossing their uneaten school lunch scraps in the garbage bin, Stowe students donate their leftover fruits and vegetables to the school's worm compost. Items that aren't as compost-friendly, such as breads and potatoes, are donated to area farmers, who feed the free and tasty slop to their pigs.
To the surprise of many educators who campaigned last year for change in the White House, the Obama administration's first recipe for school reform relies heavily on Bush-era ingredients and adds others that make unions gag.
Standardized testing, school accountability, performance pay, charter schools -- all are integral to President Obama's $4.35 billion "Race to the Top" grant competition to spur innovation. None is a typical Democratic crowd-pleaser.
BERKELEY - Several thousand people are packed into UC's Sproul Plaza to protest furloughs, layoffs and tuition increases, one of the largest gatherings there in years.
"You are wonderful to be supporting our cause. We support you too," a custodian told the crowd. He said he had been laid off last week.
The protest began early today with union picket lines at two entrances to the campus. Similar protests were expected on other campuses throughout the state.
A few years ago a Colombian friend told
me a story that took place in the 1970's in Buenaventura, a large port town on Colombia's
Pacific Coast. What happened there was both violent and inspiring, and
it makes me think about the crisis in public education we face in California
today. As we embark on a statewide University of California strike on
September 24, it is worthwhile to contemplate where we are going if
we continue down the road we are on.
As a second-grade teacher in a Milwaukee public school, I’m worried about the swine flu.
Not so much for me, but for my students and their parents.
I know that parents are supposed to keep kids home if they have
symptoms. But for too many parents, staying home from work is not a
reality because they can’t afford to lose a paycheck or a job.
CALIFORNIA, Md. - Approaching Evergreen Elementary, it's clear right away that there's something different about this new school. A pair of silo-like structures squats in front of the two-story brick building - cisterns storing rainwater for flushing the toilets. Then there are the cactuses and other plants growing atop the entrance canopy - put there to soak up more rain.
The communist plot to infiltrate America's
schools is almost complete.
At least, that is, according to Jim
Greer, chairman of the Florida Republican Party who recently testified,
"As the father of four children, I am absolutely appalled that
taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama's socialist
ideology"-referring to the commander in chief's scheduled address
of the nation's schools on Tuesday, September 8th.
When Arne Duncan stepped down as the head of the Chicago Public Schools to become the secretary of education in January, the school district he left behind had little to brag about. While Duncan served as its chief executive officer, CPS received mostly average or below average rankings in "The Nation's Report Card," a Department of Education assessment of the country's largest urban school districts.
I sat on the tall stool, facing the class of 9th graders. I put a cigarette between my lips and flicked on the lighter.
"Anyone mind if I smoke?"
Yes, they did mind: "That's disgusting." "It's against the law to smoke here." "There's secondhand smoke and it smells bad."
The
Obama administration has announced its long anticipated education plan,
and it has turned out to be the usual market crapshoot approach to
public education which has long distinguished this country from every
other.
