Sunday's Extra Credit Reading

California's Fortuna Fontana High School was the scene of a 500-student riot that resulted in police firing rubber pellets to scatter the mob, the school being put into lockdown, and the students being sent home early.

A 14-year-old California girl has learned that making an internet "joke" about assassinating the President of the United States is no laughing matter.

In still more news from California, they've banned high school dances in Windsor for the rest of the year because of what happened during a very Freaky Homecoming.

The Wanker of the Day has got to be the Louisville, Kentucky middle school teacher who resigned his job after being arrested and charged with attempting to seduce a detective-posing-as-a-child over the internet. (The runner-up for our W.o.D. Award is the 42-year-old clown teacher who was arrested at school for bringing crack cocaine into his classroom.)

Over at the United States Department of Education, Washington's EduCrat-in-Chief Margaret Spellings is announcing that some $12.9 million have been put aside for the teaching of foreign languages. (One of our Insiders over at The Department has intimated to us that the Queen of All Testing secretly refers to these as the Babble Grants.) Key quip from The Secretary:

"Languages like Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Hindi and Farsi are not only essential for trade in the global economy, but also to our national security," Secretary Spellings said. "When it comes to foreign languages, our students get started too late—and too few study critical languages. We can and must turn this around."

Less than 1 percent of American high school students combined study Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, Japanese, Korean, Russian or Urdu, according to the State Department.

We here at The 'Wonks can't help but wonder if the No Child Left Behind Act is going to be slightly modified in order to mandate the testing of American students' proficiency in Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, Japanese, Korean, Russian, or Urdu. (Heh. It can happen, since the Dept. of Ed. expects foreign immigrants with only one year in American schools to both read and write English at the same grade-level as their native-born school mates.) Only time and Congressional elections will tell...

Those of us who've served in the U.S. Army will never forget our drill sergeants from basic training. But today's Army is more than a little different. Meet the kinder and gentler drill sergeants of the 21st century!

In Los Angeles, they've turned the second-largest public school system in the country over to the Navy.

The men and women who wore Air Force Blue get a long-overdue memorial in Washington.

And lastly, (but certainly not leastly) the men of the Marine Corps have made a calendar that may be of interest to the ladies. (It's good clean fun with proceeds going to help those that were wounded over there.) ---------------------------------See our latest EduPosts here and yesterday's Extra Credit Reading there.