Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Education and business leaders urged an overhaul of the U.S. school system, including ending high school at the 10th grade for many students. Current teaching is failing to prepare young Americans for the global economy, members of a bipartisan panel said Thursday. Beginning teachers should earn more, according to the group, and money for this idea could come from the scrapping of conventional teacher pension plans in favor of other benefits such as 401(k)s. "People have got to understand what we've got is not working. It's not working for kids, but it's not working for teachers either,"...

<p>The latest evidence of a weak connection between education spending and academic achievement comes courtesy of the Census Bureau's American Community Survey. A report released last week found that rural states in the West and Midwest tend to have the highest rates of high school graduation. So here's a pop quiz: Guess where most of those same states rank in per-pupil spending?</p>

To Ms. Ehrenfeld: This morning I observed that during the morning news program, you and your students were engaged in activities other than watching television." So began the official letter of reprimand placed in my personnel folder by the principal at the elementary school in Maryland where I was teaching 3rd grade at the time. Odd as the accusation was, it was made even odder by the fact that my students were reading when the principal caught them not watching television. She had walked in, and there they were, sitting as silently as a group of 3rd graders can, every...