School Survival

All the dirty laundry younger people seem to air on social networks these days might lead older Americans to conclude that today's tech-savvy generation doesn't care about privacy. Such an assumption fits happily with declarations that privacy is dead, as online marketers and social sites such as Facebook try to persuade people to share even […]

In an era when students talk back to teachers, skip class and wear ever-more-risque clothing to school, one central Texas city has hit upon a deceptively simple solution: Bring back the paddle. Most school districts across the country banned paddling of students long ago. Texas sat that trend out. Nearly a quarter of the estimated […]

"It's the thing you've waited your whole life for, to walk across the stage with your graduating class," said Sam Pierce. Sam Pierce has been an honor student at Wausaukee High School all school year and was looking forward to graduating with her class in May. But when the class of 2010 walks across the […]

School lunches have been called many things, but a group of retired military officers is giving them a new label: national security threat. That's not a reference to the mystery meat served up in the cafeteria line either. The retired officers are saying that school lunches have helped make the nation's young people so fat […]

A 13-year-old California boy plans to try to climb Mount Everest in a quest to reach the summits of the highest peaks on all seven continents. If Jordan Romero succeeds, he'll become the youngest person to conquer the world's highest mountain. Jordan will attempt the ascent to 29,035 feet with his father and his father's […]

A district attorney in Juneau County, Wisconsin, warned teachers in a memo sent to schools that if they teach the new sexual education curriculum mandated under state law, they could be arrested for contributing to the delinquency of a child. Because the law requires teachers to instruct children not only about contraceptives but about how […]

I just read this on Idzie's blog: If you're an unschooler, or a homeschooler, or interested in alternative learning, and are even *slightly* involved in any of those communities online, you've most likely heard about the Good Morning America segment on unschooling. Unschooling has been moving steadily into the mainstream awareness in the last few […]

The mother of a 16-year-old boy said she shut him out of his Facebook account after reading he had driven home at 95 mph one night because he was mad at a girl. His response: a harassment complaint at the local courthouse. "If I'm found guilty on this it is going to be open season" […]

A few times each month, second graders at a charter school in Springfield, Mass., take time from math and reading to engage in philosophical debate. There is no mention of Hegel or Descartes, no study of syllogism or solipsism. Instead, Prof. Thomas E. Wartenberg and his undergraduate students from nearby Mount Holyoke College use classic […]

A 13-year-old Yemeni girl who was forced into marriage died five days after her wedding when she suffered a rupture in her sex organs and hemorrhaging, a local rights organization said Thursday. Ilham Mahdi al Assi died last Friday in a hospital in Yemen's Hajja province, the Shaqaeq Arab Forum for Human Rights said in […]