Extra Credit Reading: Monday, November 06, 2006

I knew that a large number of kids were injured in and around school busses, but who would've guessed that there would be some 17,000?

Eastern Guilford High School may have lost its building to fire, but the students and staff still have their football team.

The Seattle Times is declaring that the effort spearheaded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation toward smaller schools has yet to yield big results. Here's a sample:

The experiment — an attempt to downsize the American high school — has proven less successful than hoped.

The changes were often so divisive — and the academic results so mixed — that the Gates Foundation has stopped always pushing small as a first step in improving big high schools. Instead, it's now also working directly on instruction, giving grants to improve math and science instruction, for example.

Most of the dozen-and-a-half Washington schools with so-called "conversion" grants have ended up only as hybrids — a mix of small-school elements added to big-school features.

Nationally, one high school in Denver abandoned the effort, at least for awhile. In Washington, staff at Henry Foss High in Tacoma and Davis High in Yakima clashed over how — or whether — to do it.

Ouch! In Duxbury, Massachusetts, an errant computer managed to dump the G.P.A.s of some 741 students, just in time for the College Application Season.

Our Wanker of the Day Award goes to.... high school teacher and coach Brandon Hall of New Port, Kentucky. He was arrested and charged with one count of an "unlawful transaction with a minor" for allegedly "purchasing alcohol for students and smoking marijuana with them at a home in Newport." (Mr. Hall may just qualify for a Darwin Award in Education if and when he loses his job.)
--------------------------------See our latest EduPosts here and yesterday's Extra Credit Reading there.