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Body Mass and You

BMI article In the district where my children go to school, a new rule was instituted a few years ago. They were to be weighed and their BMI, (Body Mass Index) was to be recorded. I was told by the school nurse, (a really nice woman with a long history of doing her job and doing it well), that the rule was required by the state, and it was little more than a formality. Which got me thinking. Could it be that, at the state level, someone was really, genuinely concerned about childhood obesity, and instituted this rule so as to gather data, and then do something about it? As much as I would like to believe that… uh, no. Sorry. Can’t. I know first-hand that the folks in charge of food service in our school district do care, and have instituted policies to help make the transition to healthier choices available to my kids. I know they are working hard to exceed the guidelines set forth for them by the state and federal government. There is still a long way to go, but they are wo...
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Corporal Punishment

http://huff.to/hixQdT I read this. And so I then I read this. http://ti.me/nP2LZ And then, because I couldn't believe that I was getting the full story, I went here: http://bit.ly/3f9KbM Growing up and living in the Northeast, U.S., I have never been hit by a teacher in school. I'm quite sure that my mother, even as I pushed her toward the brink of her sanity time and time again during my educational years, would never have allowed it.  Raising my children now in the Northeast means that, while I have certainly heard of the practice of corporal punishment, I was under the assumption that it was a thing of the past, buried away with those times of air raid drills, segregated schools and doctors doing cigarette commercials on TV. So, you can imagine my shame-faced surprise when I discovered that 19 states in our nation still allow, condone and in some places encourage corporal punishment in schools. And, as if that isn't enough to get the blood boiling, perhaps the fac...
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Teacher merits

This is just a small part of the debate about teachers, administrations and school districts budgets. More to come as the season rolls on. - JD Quite a bit of debate in these days of belt-tightening and budget slashing is focused on teachers' salaries.  The conservative view would be that teachers are highly paid, without tangible, measurable results. After all, how can one measure how much a teacher cares about their students' achievement? The Bush administration tried to combat that view with No Child Left Behind, which, while there are many intricacies and trade-offs, roughly amounted to using student test scores to judge teacher effectiveness.  This method of evaluation lacks common sense in so many ways that it just makes me shake my head, but, at the very least... somebody tried something! You can find many arguments, both pro and con, on NCLB... so go do some homework. The question remains... do teachers make too much money? As I have stated before, this question...
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