Extra Credit Reading: Sunday, November 19, 2006

Some 10,000 San Francisco parents converged on the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on Saturday to peruse offerings at San Francisco's public schools and kick off the district's annual, anxiety-ridden enrollment process.

One California high school teacher is learning that it's one thing to have a MySpace website and post videos on YouTube, but sending inappropriate emails to students can get one arrested and earn for yourself a Darwin Award in Education.

Meanwhile, a New York City high school student is learning that a stink bomb is still bomb by any other name.

After 16 years of service, Bernie Eshoo, a popular Chicago-area school librarian, has been laid-off and is now without a paycheck due to "budget cuts." Even the kids have gone to bat in a vain attempt to convince the System to reverse what appears to be a questionable decision... (When's the last time anybody has heard of a district-level school administrator losing his or her sinecure being laid-off due to "budget cuts?")

Tragically, six students were trampled to death while 39 were injured in the stairwell of a Chinese middle school.

Check out the Alabama school board that wants to muzzle folks who criticize "any citizen's good name" at board meetings. The penalty is exclusion from meetings and microphones for up to one year...

Can there be anything "cooler" than a high school forensics class?

The Los Angeles Times' EduBlog School Me! has their weekly roundup of international EduNews. ------------------------------See our latest EduPosts and yesterday's Extra Credit Reading.