Today's Papers: March 21 2006

In today's papers: competitive teachers, anxious parents, kind words for urban districts, new FCC rules, and over-testing. Plus -- Los Angeles/NYC love-fest.

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Teachers spurn talented rivalsUSAT
Earlier this month, two top Army scientists from the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland sat down with teachers from the nearby public high school to advise them on setting up a robotics course. Aberdeen scientists will also co-teach classes, mentor students and appear at school career days.

Secretary Spellings Praises Urban Schools U.S.D.E.
U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings today addressed the Council of the Great City Schools Annual Legislative and Policy Conference.

Los Angeles Mayor Sees Bloomberg School Reforms as Model NYT
Antonio R. Villaraigosa said that other cities should examine placing schools under mayoral control, as New York has done. (Also: Mayor Gets Takeover Tutorial in New York).

NCLB: No Culture Left Behind Quad City Times
Much of the trouble with No Child Left Behind involves its obsession with test-driven reading, math and science instructions at the expense of skills that really matter in the real world: creativity, problem solving, and expression.

FCC Proposes rules for Education TV LA Times
Rules proposed Friday by the Federal Communications Commission would require broadcasters to air at least three hours of children’s educational programs each week.

Putting Parents In Their Place: Outside Class Washington Post
They are needy, overanxious and sometimes plain pesky – and schools at every level are trying to find ways to deal with them. No, not students. Parents – specifically parents of today’s “millennial generation” who, may educators are discovering, can’t their kids go.

~Margaret Paynich