Free Republic

Salon's got a blood-boiling interview with Aaron Kupchik, author of Homeroom Security: School Discipline in an Age of Fear, a close look at four very different US schools. Each school has a different demographic and different location, but the thing they all share is a set of zero-tolerance policies that turn them into Kafka-esque nightmares: (snip) "...We're teaching kids what it means to be a citizen in our country. And what I fear we're doing is teaching them that what it means to be an American is that you accept authority without question and that you have absolutely no rights...

Schoolchildren from Caversham have become the first to learn a brand new theory that dividing by zero is possible using a new number - 'nullity'. But the suggestion has left many mathematicians cold. Dr James Anderson, from the University of Reading's computer science department, says his new theorem solves an extremely important problem - the problem of nothing. "Imagine you're landing on an aeroplane and the automatic pilot's working," he suggests. "If it divides by zero and the computer stops working - you're in big trouble. If your heart pacemaker divides by zero, you're dead." Computers simply cannot divide by...

ASHINGTON, Nov. 26 — Children attending public schools deemed failing under a new federal law have to be offered transfers to better schools, regardless of whether those schools are already full, according to final regulations released today by the federal Education Department.The new regulations, which are more stringent than expected, could leave hundreds of districts scrambling for alternative places for children who want to transfer out of poorly functioning schools. The new regulations do not oblige school districts to adopt specific solutions. At a news conference here today, Education Department officials said that schools might consider signing contracts with...