Today’s Top Picks:

Congrats to the latest adult inmate high school graduates.
http://goo.gl/5ksUX (SLT)
and http://goo.gl/0iURD (DN)
and http://goo.gl/7fV59 (KUTV)
and http://goo.gl/B82Ht (KSL)

Sen. Stephenson discusses dynamic fiscal notes.
http://goo.gl/QXAvH (UTA)

Ed Week looks at 40 years of Title IX.
http://goo.gl/eoIHx (Ed Week)

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TODAY’S HEADLINES
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UTAH

Course correction: Utah State Prison celebrates class of 2012
Education » 340 inmates in the Utah State Prison earn their high school diplomas.

Canyons district grads earn advanced, honors diplomas

Superintendent, ACLU ‘in conversation’

Louis Wong settles with Provo School District, resigns

Canyons School District superintendent approved for pay raise

Filling summer days with new worlds and learning

New principal named for Hurricane High

USS Utah silver service

Six Utah nonprofits earn $402,000 in grants

Charter schools test church and state boundary

Which state has the highest average ACT and SAT scores?

OPINION & COMMENTARY

A fearful message
Davis library book decision illegal?

Children show adults how to handle this gay book thing

Dynamic v. Static Fiscal Notes: Is There More to be Gained?

Controversial alternate-marriage book-banning process flawed

10 ways to oppose high-stakes standardized tests

What Can K-12 Learn From “Pay-for-Performance” Deals in Higher Ed.?

Idaho Ballot Another Litmus Test for Teachers’ Unions?

Romney on schools: Now we’re talking

Why Romney’s Big School Voucher Idea Is Really Pretty Puny
Three reasons the candidate’s school-choice proposal is less provocative than it seems

Romney Schools Obama

Are public schools in trouble?

No More Ditching Gym Class
The next wave of standardized testing is here, measuring your kids in art, music, and phys ed. Is that even possible?

Math Performance Linked to Child’s Weight, Study Finds

Wilhoit to Step Down as Head of CCSSO

Baltimore and the Portfolio School District Strategy

NATION

Teachers Open Up On Why Kids Really Drop Out

Chicago pushes longer school days as key to achievement: ‘We had to do something’

Should bullies be treated as criminals?

Title IX: New Opportunities for Girls, But Gender Gap Remains
Many more take part in high school sports since 1972, but the gender gap remains huge

Khan Academy founder talks online education success

Michael Lewis on Princeton Speech: I Aimed To Give Something Unexpected

A blue man ‘dupe’: Parent panic at 32G ‘progressive’ school

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UTAH NEWS
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Course correction: Utah State Prison celebrates class of 2012
Education » 340 inmates in the Utah State Prison earn their high school diplomas.

Draper * Bad decisions got them here, but on Wednesday several hundred inmates at the Utah State Prison celebrated one good decision that may help keep them from coming back: They graduated from high school.

In their brightly colored gold and royal blue gowns, the 340 graduates whooped and whistled and flipped their tassels from one side of their caps to the other as officials at the Canyons School District’s South Park Academy presented the 2012 class to applause from friends, family, teachers and officers – their crimes perhaps not forgotten, but momentarily replaced by the promise of hope.
http://goo.gl/5ksUX (SLT)

http://goo.gl/0iURD (DN)

http://goo.gl/7fV59 (KUTV)

http://goo.gl/B82Ht (KSL)

Canyons district grads earn advanced, honors diplomas

SANDY – Nearly two-thirds of the Canyons School District class of 2012 has earned an advanced or honors diploma, an achievement indicating they have completed a more rigorous class schedule to prepare for the demands of college and careers.
In the class of 2012, 2,210 students were projected to graduate from Canyons’ four high schools (Alta, Brighton, Jordan, Hillcrest); 62 percent (1,381 students) earned an advanced or honors diploma (up from 60 percent last year); of the students who earned a differentiated diploma, 49 percent earned the more challenging honors diploma (up from 45 percent last year).
http://goo.gl/kZ4t0 (DN)

Superintendent, ACLU ‘in conversation’

LAYTON — Davis School District Superintendent Bryan Bowles is having discussions with the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah over the constitutional implications of the district’s removal of a book from library shelves about children being raised by a lesbian couple.
“The superintendent is in conversations with the ACLU about their concerns,” Shauna Lund, a communications specialist for the Davis School District, said Wednesday. She did not provide details about the conversation.
The ACLU has requested a meeting with Bowles regarding the district’s removal from the shelves of “In Our Mothers’ House,” by Patricia Polacco.
However, no meeting has been scheduled and the district is standing by its policy to keep the book off library shelves, Lund said.
http://goo.gl/mufmw (OSE)

http://goo.gl/bMAlN (PDH)

Louis Wong settles with Provo School District, resigns

The Provo School District has announced it has settled an appeal by Louis Wong, the former Timpview football coach. As part of the settlement, the district has retracted its firing of Wong. Instead, he is resigning from his teaching position.
The deal was struck between school district attorney Mark Robinson and Wong’s attorney, Elizabeth Dunning, days ago, and the school board approved the settlement on Tuesday night, interim superintendent Bob Gentry said. As part of terms of the settlement, the district will also pay out Wong’s contract through May 25, the end of the school year.
The settlement closes Wong’s nearly three-month fight with the school district to retain his job after he was suspended and subsequently fired following a state audit that alleged fiscal irresponsibility and flagrant violations of district and state policy within the Timpview football program. Wong had been suspended in March as the school district reviewed the audit.
http://goo.gl/JpOFE (SLT)

http://goo.gl/uk3dn (DN)

http://goo.gl/dtX8G (PDH)

http://goo.gl/uiVtI (KSTU)

Canyons School District superintendent approved for pay raise

SANDY, Utah – The Canyons District School Board has approved a pay raise for Superintendent David Doty following public outcry about his management style.
The school board says they stand by Doty after several students’ parents questioned his management style and called for an independent investigation. And on Tuesday night they rewarded him for hard work, board members say, in creating a district from scratch.
http://goo.gl/zbPPO (KSTU)

Filling summer days with new worlds and learning

“I’m bored” will soon be the cry heard round the valley as the school year comes to an end. The trick with children is to keep them actively learning in a fun way in the summer so they don’t lose the momentum they built during the school year. The thought of three months of idle time wasted in front of the TV or playing video games is enough to give any responsible parent nightmares.
Fortunately, the Salt Lake area offers several summer reading programs to help young learners stay in the groove. Summer is a great time to discover new worlds, new characters and new ideas. Here are some of the programs available this summer to keep your students happy and reading.
http://goo.gl/7bkTq (DN)

New principal named for Hurricane High

ST. GEORGE – The Washington County School District Board of Education has approved the appointment of Jody Rich as the new principal of Hurricane High School. Rich will replace Kevin Pedersen, who requested a reassignment.
Rich is serving as the assistant principal of Hurricane High School. As Rich’s position will be vacated by the action, the board appointed Sheri Fisher as the new assistant principal, replacing Rich. Pedersen will replace Fisher as the assistant principal of Hurricane Intermediate School.
http://goo.gl/etGeF (SGS)

USS Utah silver service

SALT LAKE CITY– This story is about how more than 26,000 Utah school children helped purchase the silver service used on the American battleship USS Utah.
$10,000 is a lot of money today. It was even more in 1909, particularly when it was spent to buy a bunch of silver platters and a fancy punchbowl. But that is how much the State of Utah paid for the silver service it presented as a gift to the newly-commissioned American battleship USS Utah.
In the early 20th century, national tradition deemed that any state with a battleship named after it present the new ship with an elegant silver service. Utah’s Governor William Spry wanted the silver service to be a source of pride for all Utah citizens, so he also thought they should have the privilege of helping to pay for it.
http://goo.gl/DgDk0 (PDH)

Six Utah nonprofits earn $402,000 in grants

Six Utah nonprofit groups benefitted from $402,000 in grants from the Colorado-based Daniels Fund.
The recipients are: Murray Youth Baseball; the Erin Kimball Memorial Foundation in St. George; TriCounty Health Department; the Utah Food Bank in Salt Lake; Utah Schools for the Deaf and Blind in Ogden and Canyon Creek Women’s Crisis Center in Cedar City.
http://goo.gl/rHoFB (SLT)

Charter schools test church and state boundary

Walk into any Waldorf-inspired charter school, and you enter a different world of public education where students sing songs, stamp out math with their feet, carve wood, play recorders and draw maps.
Walk into any Waldorf-inspired charter school, and you enter a different world of public education where students sing songs, stamp out math with their feet, carve wood, play recorders and draw maps.
You’ll also find students outside. “If you are going to learn about science, the best place to do it is outside,” said Allegra Allesandri, principal at a Waldorf-inspired public high school in Sacramento, Calif. “Nature is our textbook.”
Based on the work of an Austrian mystic philosopher named Rudolph Steiner, there are now more than 1,000 Waldorf schools in more than 90 countries. Waldorf-inspired public charter schools are also booming in the U.S., with more than 40 now operating, mostly in Western states.
http://goo.gl/d64Vo (DN)

Which state has the highest average ACT and SAT scores?

The ACT and SAT are two of the most important test for a prospective college student.
The more prestigious the school, the tougher the score requirements will be.
Here is a ranking of all U.S. states based on average ACT and SAT scores.
ACT score figures came from ACT.org. The College Board provided the SAT figures.
http://goo.gl/Vlaf9 (DN)

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OPINION & COMMENTARY
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A fearful message
Davis library book decision illegal?

Salt Lake Tribune editorial

The American Civil Liberties Union has raised a new issue in the Davis School District controversy over the district’s decision to banish behind the counter a book about a family with two mothers.
As well as promoting intolerance and bigotry among children, which it certainly does, hiding the book out of children’s sight may also be unconstitutional.
In a letter to the district superintendent, the Utah ACLU affiliate points out that “Federal courts have consistently concluded that the First Amendment protects student access to books in their school libraries, free from limits based on the administration’s disagreement with the viewpoints expressed in the books.” Access to books portraying gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender characters has been protected.
That’s a relevant point and one that district officials should consider seriously.
http://goo.gl/EKnQU

Children show adults how to handle this gay book thing

(Ogden) Standard-Examiner commentary by columnist Charles F. Trentelman

Oh great. Now the ACLU is involved.
The Davis School District restricted access to a book about gay parents and there’s been a huge uproar. On Tuesday the ACLU said it wants to talk about how the district may have violated the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Has anyone read the book?
We read some of “In Our Mothers’ House” on Monday at a community forum held by Ogden OUTreach, which I moderated. It’s a nice book, but is it this controversial?
No.
The book describes normal family life. There are dinners and picnics and aunts and uncles, kids playing, parents cooking, people getting older, and so on.
That’s it. Page after page of normal.
Except, of course, that the book describes a family with two mothers.
Ah, yes: Married gay people.
http://goo.gl/gKWjR

Dynamic v. Static Fiscal Notes: Is There More to be Gained?

Utah Taxpayers Association commentary by Sen. Howard Stephenson

I’ve spent my entire professional career with your Utah Taxpayers Association. Over those 35 years I’ve always been puzzled when the budget staff in the Legislative Fiscal Analyst’s office has told me that the state will lose money when we cut taxes. Unfortunately, too many in Utah policy circles still think that business investments are independent of tax policy.
The clearest expression of this outdated thinking is in the way our legislative staff is required to score the impact of tax bills. Before the House or the Senate can debate a bill on the floor, it must have a “Fiscal Note,” a document that estimates the impact of the bill on the state’s budget. In most cases, the Fiscal Note indicates that the bill will have no impact. In other cases, the bill changes how an agency acts, and so could save/cost the state money.
When the Legislature changes tax policy, however, the Fiscal Note can indicate multi-million dollar swings in revenue to or from the state’s “Education Fund,” “General Fund,” or “Transportation Fund.” Because Utah’s Constitution requires the Legislature to balance its budget, revenue changes from all the bills with Fiscal Notes must balance. Needless to say, bills
with a “positive” Fiscal Note (or one projecting new revenue to the state) are often easier to pass than bills with a “negative” Fiscal Note (or one projecting lost revenue to the state).
The problem is, legislative staff rely on a “static” model to evaluate whether a bill will increase or decrease revenue to the state.
http://goo.gl/QXAvH

Controversial alternate-marriage book-banning process flawed

Deseret News letter from Kathleen Dennis

Some parents from Windbridge Elementary school were upset about the book “In Our Mothers’ House.” They took their complaint to the school library media committee who decided it should be moved from the K-2 bookshelves to the grades 3-6 shelves.
The parents didn’t like that decision so they collected 25 signatures from other parents and took it to the next level, the Davis County District Library Media Committee. On April 30, this group looked at the complaint and decided to move the book behind the librarian’s desk and require a parental signature before checking out the book, effectively banning it. The policy of the Davis County School District is that this decision cannot be reconsidered or reversed for three years.
http://goo.gl/98ap0

10 ways to oppose high-stakes standardized tests

Washington Post commentary by columnist Valerie Strauss

I’ve written several times in recent months about a growing movement by parents, teachers, principals, superintendents, students and others to protest the use of standardized tests for high-stakes purposes.
Here’s a list of 10 things that people can do to counter the damaging effects of high-stakes standardized testing. It was written by Ruth Silverberg, an associate professor in the Education Department of the College of Staten Island CUNY.
http://goo.gl/3I8lW

What Can K-12 Learn From “Pay-for-Performance” Deals in Higher Ed.?

Education Week commentary by columnist Jason Tomassini

We’ve written a lot about the concerns over the accountability for online education. Here’s one, perhaps unexpected, way to fix that: Pay the course provider only when a student passes.
That’s the premise a new deal between McGraw-Hill and Western Governors University, an accredited online university based in Salt Lake City. WGU will pay McGraw-Hill a reduced flat fee for licenses to the course materials and then a premium for each student that passes the course.
http://goo.gl/yNw9S

http://goo.gl/j1yyk (Inside Higher Ed)

Idaho Ballot Another Litmus Test for Teachers’ Unions?

Education Week commentary by columnist Andrew Ujifusa

With everyone discussing what the Wisconsin recall election results “mean” for teachers’ unions across the country, it’s worth taking the temperature of a state where the teachers’ union may not have the same clout as in some states, but is still fighting a significant electoral battle.
As my predecessor on this blog, Sean Cavanagh, has previously discussed, the Idaho Education Association (representing 11,000 education workers, most of them teachers) successfully gathered enough signatures to place three new laws from 2011 on the November ballot for voters to either uphold or strike down. The laws were part of a major education legislation package passed by legislators and supported strongly by state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna, as well as Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter, a Republican.
The first ballot referendum, Proposition 1, deals with the 2011 law restricting collective bargaining for teachers just to salaries and benefits, phasing out tenure, and removing from the bargaining table issues like bell schedules and classroom time for teachers.
The second, Proposition 2, is about the new “pay-for-performance” law for teachers that creates bonuses based in part on student achievement and performance on state tests.
Finally, Proposition 3 challenges the mandate placing more technology in classrooms, including the requirement that students take online courses in order to graduate, and that each high school student have access to a laptop, a requirement being phased in over the next three school years.
http://goo.gl/LjiX9

Romney on schools: Now we’re talking

Washington Times commentary by columnist Deborah Simmons

Leave it to Mitt Romney, the nonconservative conservative running neck and neck with President Obama, to begin nudging Republicans and libertarians toward closing an ideological divide by proposing to grant federal vouchers to disabled and poor children and suggesting that school districts open their doors to children who don’t reside in certain ZIP codes.
His proposals take school choice to an entirely new – and much-welcomed – level of discourse.
The Romney plan instantly snatches education reform from the province of Team Obama and its moneyed supporters by placing education dollars precisely where they belong: in the hands of parents.
http://goo.gl/Ydb4P

Why Romney’s Big School Voucher Idea Is Really Pretty Puny
Three reasons the candidate’s school-choice proposal is less provocative than it seems

Time commentary by columnist Andrew J. Rotherham

School vouchers are back in the news except that proponents of the idea, including Mitt Romney, are not using the word vouchers any more. For some reason voters don’t like that term, but they do like the idea of giving parents more choices, so vouchers – I mean “scholarships” and “choice” are a big part of Mr. Romney’s education platform. Listen to him talk about it, and it’s as though we’ve traveled back in time; substitute Bob Dole for Romney and President Clinton for President Obama, and it’s the same debate we had in the 1990s. There is a lot more choice in education now than there was two decades ago: voucher programs for private and parochial schools are well established in cities like Milwaukee and Cleveland, and states like Indiana and Louisiana have enacted them more recently. There are also about half a dozen state programs specifically for students with disabilities. Meanwhile, charter schools continue to proliferate; there are now more than 5,000 of these publicly funded alternatives that students can choose to attend rather than their traditional neighborhood school. But despite all that, this latest round of voucher-pseudonym talk probably won’t amount to much. That’s because school choice is a state-by-state game, not a federal one.
Here are three reasons why Romney’s proposals are less provocative than they seem:
http://goo.gl/1dque

Romney Schools Obama
Wall Street Journal commentary by columnist JASON L. RILEY

Mitt Romney got slammed by the Obama campaign recently for suggesting that the country doesn’t need more public school teachers. The president’s team says that more spending to hire educators is essential to better student outcomes and overall economic growth.
The number of job losses that teachers have experienced nationwide “is dramatically bad news for the country [and] it’s certainly not good news for our future,” said David Axelrod, President Obama’s senior campaign adviser, earlier this week. “We’re not going to win, and our kids aren’t going to win, unless we invest in education.”
Invest in education? Federal per-pupil spending rose by an inflation-adjusted 375% between 1970 and 2010, yet test scores in math, science and reading remained essentially flat over the same period.
http://goo.gl/2gW3j

Are public schools in trouble?

Fox News O’Reilly Factor commentary

BILL O’REILLY, HOST: “Personal Story” segment tonight, as we discussed at the top of the broadcast there’s a major problem in many American public schools. Not only are some of the kids not being taught the basics, but there’s this whole self-esteem craziness going on.
In California, a high school valedictorian, very smart kid, told the principal of the Orestimba High School that he wants to give his speech in Spanish. The principal said, “Sure, go right ahead.”
With us now, Deborah Kenny, who founded a charter school network here in New York City called the Harlem Village Academies. Chairman of the News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch, is on the board, and Dr. Kenny is the author of a new book called “Born to Rise,” which explains how to educate children so they will prosper.
First of all, do you… do you agree with me that many public schools are in chaos? I mean, or this political correctness…
http://goo.gl/6VgkF

No More Ditching Gym Class
The next wave of standardized testing is here, measuring your kids in art, music, and phys ed. Is that even possible?

Slate commentary by Dana Goldstein, Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation

In November 2010, I visited Harrison District 2, a low-income, largely Latino school district in Colorado Springs. As part of a plan to evaluate and pay all teachers according to how well they “grow” student achievement, the district had just rolled out its first-ever testing program in the visual arts, music, and physical education-a program that has since become a national model.
On the first-grade art exam, students were asked to write a paragraph about a Matisse painting. In second-grade gym class, a pencil and paper test required students to “Draw a picture of how your hands look while they are catching a ball that is thrown above your head.”
The program, launched by crusading superintendent Mike Miles (who has since been appointed to a much more high-profile job leading the Dallas public schools), was not immediately embraced. Some Harrison art teachers complained about being assessed on their students’ writing skills, and gym teachers balked that they were now expected to teach drawing. This past school year, Harrison administrators responded to those concerns by showing teachers exam questions ahead of time, and allowing them to give feedback on whether the reading level and content expectations were appropriate for their students. (Administrators say complaints from teachers subsequently fell.)
http://goo.gl/9ZV96

Math Performance Linked to Child’s Weight, Study Finds

Education Week commentary by columnist Bryan Toporek

Could being obese as a child hinder a student’s success with mathematics? A new study suggests that childhood obesity and math performance are related.
The study, published online today in the journal Child Development, focuses on data for 6,250 children from the start of kindergarten through 5th grade, taken from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K). For this study, data from five time points were used: both fall and spring in kindergarten, spring in 1st grade, spring in 3rd grade, and spring in 5th grade.
Researchers discovered that both boys and girls who were persistently obese throughout their K-5 years performed significantly worse on math tests than their peers of healthy weight in 1st, 3rd, and 5th grades. For girls, their weight status as they entered kindergarten had a “marginally significant” effect on their math performance, too.
http://goo.gl/3XTTs

A copy of the study
http://goo.gl/joF2o

Wilhoit to Step Down as Head of CCSSO

Education Week commentary by columnist Andrew Ujifusa

The Council of Chief State School Officers announced today that its executive director for the past six years, Gene Wilhoit, will leave the organization once its board of directors conducts a national search and names his replacement.
Wilhoit previously served as the education commissioner of Arkansas and of Kentucky before taking over at the CCSSO in November 2006. During his time, the CCSSO helped to develop the Common Core State Standards with the National Governors Association. Common core academic standards been been adopted by 46 states and the District of Columbia.
http://goo.gl/5n7wJ

Baltimore and the Portfolio School District Strategy

Center on Reinventing Public Education analysis

Under the leadership of CEO Dr. Andrés Alonso, Baltimore City Public Schools (City Schools) has come a long way over the last five years in terms of improving student achievement, granting schools more autonomy, and creating an environment friendly to innovators and new school providers.
This case study of the implementation of City Schools’ portfolio strategy explores how the district’s reform work aligns with CRPE’s definition of the portfolio strategy and how it compares to the approaches taken in other districts. The report highlights several areas where BCPS has been among the leading portfolio districts, and concludes with detailed recommendations in three policy areas-school closure, autonomy, and accountability-that the author believes are critical as the district moves into the next phase of portfolio reform.
http://goo.gl/HxSzu

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NATIONAL NEWS
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Teachers Open Up On Why Kids Really Drop Out

NPR Tell Me More

It’s the end of the school year, and teachers and students are enjoying some downtime. But some kids won’t be going back to school next fall because about a million students drop out every year. Host Michel Martin discusses the dropout crisis with teachers from three cities with high dropout rates: Las Vegas, St. Louis and Washington, D.C.
http://goo.gl/3lTeU

Chicago pushes longer school days as key to achievement: ‘We had to do something’

MSNBC

Many children in Chicago Public Schools will go from having the shortest school days in the nation to some of the longest this fall, a move that some experts say is needed to help push the struggling system ahead in student achievement.
Other school districts are reporting improvement in achievement after extending the school day, and if President Barack Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan had their way, all of America’s kids would be in school longer with shorter summer vacations.
But one researcher said the perception among policy makers and the public that U.S. students spend less time in school than their peers in other countries is not backed by fact.
http://goo.gl/LaQKi

Should bullies be treated as criminals?

USA Today

After Kenneth Weishuhn told classmates at his Iowa high school last winter that he was gay, his family says anonymous voicemail threats began popping up on his cellphone. At school, some of his fellow students yelled anti-gay slurs, and the harassment got so bad that teachers at South O’Brien High School in Paullina, Iowa, began standing guard in hallways. Friends started an online support group for Kenneth, whom they called “K.J.” Bullies spammed it, family members say.
On April 15, K.J. hanged himself in the garage of his home in Primghar. He was 14.
K.J.’s suicide generated a rare front-page editorial in the Sioux City Journal, headlined, “We must stop bullying. It starts here. And it starts now.” The editorial said bullies’ mistreatment of Weishuhn “didn’t let up until he took his own life,” adding, “We are all to blame. We have not done enough.”
Candlelight vigils and rallies for the freshman spread across Iowa, and K.J.’s image served as an onstage backdrop during Madonna’s European tour.
Nearly two months later, police are still investigating. O’Brien County Sheriff Michael Anderson said Tuesday that an announcement from the county attorney on whether criminal charges will be filed could come as early as this week.
Tragic suicides such as K.J.’s have galvanized educators into a zero-tolerance stance on bullying, and a recent analysis by the U.S. Department of Education shows that state lawmakers nationwide are increasingly willing to criminalize bullying behavior, even as experts wonder whether doing so will have the intended effect: to curb the behavior and improve the learning atmosphere.
As millions of students head off to their summer breaks, they might leave behind the face-to-face bullying that includes everything from simple taunts to brutal beatings, but too often they can’t escape the digital world that gives the predators access to their prey day and night and well beyond the schoolyard gates.
http://goo.gl/txy69

Title IX: New Opportunities for Girls, But Gender Gap Remains
Many more take part in high school sports since 1972, but the gender gap remains huge

Education Week

Forty years ago next week, 37 words permanently changed the landscape of sports.
On June 23, 1972, President Richard M. Nixon signed into law Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits gender discrimination in any federally financed education program or activity.
Title IX is far-reaching, but the law is most often associated with school and college athletics.
“We can safely say, of all the areas Title IX covers-and it’s key to remember it’s more than athletics-athletics is probably the place where we’ve seen the most visible strides,” said Lisa Maatz, the director of public policy and government relations for the Washington-based American Association of University Women.
http://goo.gl/eoIHx

Khan Academy founder talks online education success

CBS This Morning

Could education one day be free – and perhaps be teacher-free? In a way, that’s how Sal Khan sees it.
Six years ago, Khan – the man Bill Gates called “his favorite teacher” – created Khan Academy, an online non-profit school with more than 2,300 educational videos in 12 languages that are all completely free.
Khan said on “CBS This Morning” that his educational videos are all about taking the stress out of learning and making concepts approachable. He began the educational videos to help his family
http://goo.gl/6aj5A

Michael Lewis on Princeton Speech: I Aimed To Give Something Unexpected

NewsHour

After providing some thought-provoking words to the graduates of Princeton’s Class of 2012, author Michael Lewis speaks with Jeffrey Brown on the merits of success, the relationship between luck and good fortune, and the responsibility luck warrants.
http://goo.gl/asQOT

A blue man ‘dupe’: Parent panic at 32G ‘progressive’ school

New York Post

The Blue School is one big play date in desperate need of adult supervision.
Parents are yanking their kids out of the “progressive,” $32,000 per-year private school founded by the Blue Man Group – which has no books and no tests – because their kids are barely learning to read, The Post has learned.
One mother, who is yanking her son at the end of the school year, complained that the school is “unstructured.”
http://goo.gl/grG9d

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