Starting this year the Miami-Dade County School Board will randomly test high school students for performance-enhancing drugs or steroids.

I suspect readers will either champion the school board’s initiatives to combat illicit drug use in public high schools, or they will abhor the plan as government overreach.

Cynthia Demos of CBS Miami has...

Apparently, it is possible for someone to align with the Republican Party and have socially liberal views, such as supporting the legalization of gay marriage and marijuana decriminalization. No doubt liberal Democrats are panicking at the thought of losing their “sure-bet” millennial base.

From a Reuters article published by Yahoo News:

‘Liberty Kids’...

Charlie Strong is the head coach of the Texas Longhorns, the first black head coach of any athletic program at the University of Texas at Austin.

He’s working on the field to revitalize this iconic sports program, and he’s working off the field to instill certain ‘core values’ in his players: honesty,...

Equal parts cool and scary.

Rachel Feltman of the Washington Post reports:

MIT researchers can listen to your conversation by watching your potato chip bag

Imagine someone listening in to your private conversation by filming the bag of chips sitting on the other side of the room. Oddly specific, I know, but researchers at...

Apparently, exposing cheating is one of the few fire-able offenses a teacher can commit.

Chuck Ross of The Daily Caller reports:

Teacher Claims He Was Fired For Exposing Cheating Scheme

A Michigan high school teacher says he was fired after he blew the whistle on the schools’ effort to help students cheat on the...

GOPers might be divided on Common Core, but at least they seem united in their opposition to teacher tenure laws.

From Fox News:

On heels of big lawsuits, teacher tenure looms as a likely 2016 presidential issue

Teacher tenure looms as a likely hot-button issue in the 2016 presidential races, with several potential GOP...

The culprit of the financial insanity is the University of Michigan, which is moving this single tree to make room for a $135 million expansion of its business school.

For the 2013-14 school year, in-state total cost of attending (tuition and fees) the University of Michigan was $13,189 and out-of-state total cost...

Meanwhile, the federal government continues to pump money into the higher education market, thereby causing demand-driven tuition inflation.

Karen Damato of the Wall Street Journal reports:

Families Borrow Less for College

American families are relying more on their income and savings—and less on loans—to pay for college, according to an annual study by education...

Is childhood obesity a problem? Yes.
Should children be encourage to eat healthy foods? Yes.
Should the government be in the business of policing what anyone eats? No.

From Stephanie Armour of the Wall Street Journal:

Put Down the Cupcake: New Ban Hits School Bake Sales

At Chapman School in Nebraska, resourceful students hawk pizza and...

For seven degree programs at the San Diego campus of the for-profit University of Phoenix more than 85% of students are veterans, which is apparently too high for California regulators to stomach.

The regulators believe the campus is specifically targeting veterans for admissions because their educations are federally-funded and therefore their tuition...

Homo is a prefix that means “same.”

Homophones are words that are pronounced the same way but have different meanings and may have spellings. Here’s an example: “bear” and “bare.”

Homosexuals are people who are sexually attracted to people of the same sex.

Homophones have nothing to do with homosexuality.

Zach Schonfeld has the story:

Education...

According to Families for Excellent Schools, a pro-charter school group, 90% of students at one-fourth of NYC’s public schools are not at proficient levels of math and language skills. The report is aptly titled “The Forgotten Fourth.”

Leslie Brody of the Wall Street Journal has the story:

Report From Pro-Charter Group Decries New...

A software glitch in Examsoft’s test administrating software created a major headache for law students across the country on Tuesday.

The test takers were unable to complete their exams and upload them to bar association websites. In 20 states, these bar associations extended their submission deadlines to accommodate the unforeseen technological failure.

On...

What’s in a rank? To a lot of people, it means quite a lot.

A year and a half ago when I was applying to colleges, many of my classmates obsessed over rankings. In some instances, I still find them doing so.

In my recent research for College Insurrection I’ve come across numerous...

It will be interesting to see next year what percentage of those applicants who opt out of SAT score submission are accepted by Temple University.

Justin Udo and Cleve Bryan reported for CBS Philly:

Temple U. Makes SAT Scores Optional On Its College Application

Following an emerging trend among schools of higher learning, Temple...

Not much to say here, except that this all reminds me of a catchy song from 1972:
“It never rains in California, but girl, don’t they warn ya
It pours, man, it pours”

Broken water main floods UCLA campus, forces rescue of drivers, pedestrians

A 93-year-old water pipe burst under Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles...

First-grade teacher Kaitlin Roig-DeBellis, who ushered her 15 students into a bathroom and saved them from what nearly certain, gruesome deaths, will have a book out next spring. It’s entitled “Choosing Hope: Moving Forward from Your Life’s Darkest Hour.”

From the Associated Press story printed in the Sacramento Bee:

Teacher who survived Sandy...

The University of California Regents must be some math whizzes.

Last month California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed a budget allotting $106 million less to the state public school system than was requested. The Regents then held a meeting last Wednesday to discuss the “funding shortfall” only to vote themselves 3% salary...

English professor Rick Diguette offers a critique of Common Core from the perspective of a college professor who has been more than underwhelmed by his recent students’ mediocre writing skills.

Originally published in the Atlantic Journal-Constitution:

Has freshman year in college become grade 12½?

Once upon a time I taught college English at a...

Seven families and former television journalist-turned-education activist Campbell Brown are filing a lawsuit using the same legal reasoning that prevailed in overturning California teacher tenure laws.

Ben Chapman and Stephen Rex Brown of the...

Coming off my own spelling mishap for a recent article on College Insurrection, I can’t really rip into University of Texas for this mishap. But, spelling ‘Texas’ as ‘Texsa” on every page...

Two men have been charged in the violent mugging-turned-murder of University of North Carolina Chapel Hill pharmacy professor Feng Liu. Liu was an internationally renown scientist whose research specialized on using nanotechnology for drug delivery systems, especially for cancer drugs.

With the story are Anne Blythe and Tammy Grubb of the...