Extra Credit Reading: Monday, October 23, 2006

Calling all teachers: Why not take this opportunity to ask U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings a question? You might even get an answer, just like we did.

The iPod is 5-years-old today! (Where does the time go?)

Did you hear the one about the Austrian business man who shook-up Vienna with his "misogynistic" bathroom fixtures?

With Election Day just around the corner, the U. S. Department of Education is handing over some $42 million dollars to a number of states. The grants are aimed (mostly) at those schools that have raised test scores.

In 2003, while teaching in Connecticut, a male teacher allegedly took a then-17-year-old female student out on a date which allegedly included drinking and sex. The former student has just come forward with her allegations and the teacher has been arrested, charged, and suspended from his New York teaching job. Was this the right way to go? You make the call...

Has the time come for "hands-off" virtual science labs?

Among today's dispatches from the Iraq Civil War, we learn more about the $800 million (much of it U.S. taxpayers' dollars) in military aid that has been stolen by corrupt officials of the Iraqi government ruling clique. (And no, it doesn't seem as though the Bush Administration is too concerned about all the thievery.) Yesterday was a particularly costly day in terms of Americans (here, here, and here) and Iraqis (here, here and there) killed or wounded in action. Meanwhile, a senior U.S. diplomat made what is likely a career-ending set of remarks during an interview on the Al-Jazeera "news" channel Saturday. On the same day, President Bush was huddled with his senior advisors over the Iraq Question, where no major shifts in policy or strategy were announced. ------------------------------See our latest EduPosts and yesterday's Extra Credit Reading.