Merry Christmas to all! If you’re anything like me, last minute shopping, baking and present wrapping took over your life, and reading blogs fell to the back burner. To catch you up, here is this week’s education blog in review.
We began by taking a look at whether or not there are any reasons under which your child’s school library should ban books. The most current debate seems to be over the popular Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. While some feel strongly that there are things that are simply inappropriate for a school library, others point out that our own tax dollars fund these libraries which are for a specific and targeted audience: our children. What do you think?
This week in Georgia, the school board finally settled a battle over stickers. The stickers were on biology textbooks and pointed out to students that ‘evolution was a theory and should be critically and carefully considered.” Apparently, some parents found it offensive that it was suggested that evolution be a theory, and consequently sued the board of education. The debate over whether or not to teach Intelligent Design has riddled many school boards recently.
As Congress gets ready to start again in January, the NEA is gearing up for lobbying its causes. Among its highest priorities is to get more funding for public schools. The NEA insists that more funding means better teachers, which means better schools. However, more public school funding, in many cases, means higher taxes. Therefore, it is worthy to look at whether or not more funding is truly needed. Interestingly, public schools are spending more money now than ever before, and yet the achievement has not risen proportionately.
We wrapped up this ‘light’ week (after all I too, am busy baking, wrapping, and cleaning for guests) with a beginning look at America’s best high schools. If your kids go to or will go to one of America’s top high schools–I’d love to hear about it! We will begin looking at high schools in depth in the education blogs this coming week.