Tennessee Regulatory Authority Director Deborah Tate was nominated yesterday by President Bush to the Federal Communications Commission, the nation's top regulatory body for media and telecommunications industries.

This actually might be good news. Debi has previously been very pro consumer and pro competition. She's had a fairly keen understanding of how technology cycles can benefit both.

President Bush picks Tate to fill Powell's seat on FCC

An 18-year-old high school student has been elected mayor after mounting a write-in campaign to oust the 51-year-old incumbent.

awesome.

18-year-old write-in candidate elected Hillsdale mayor

A deeply flawed redevelopment program has allowed Detroit's historic Brush Park neighborhood to fall into seemingly irreparable disrepair.

Once a community of flourishing town houses and mansions, the district today, according to some experts, should be prime territory for revival given its proximity to downtown Detroit, Comerica Park and Ford Field.

There have been a handful of impressive restorations in the district, along with a successful new housing tract being built by Crosswinds Communities. But the city's development plan, drawn up in 1989 and updated twice, remains largely unfulfilled. It initially called for the construction of 1,500 homes and town houses; the condemnation, purchase and demolition of upwards of 100 buildings; and payment of moving and relocation costs for an estimated 500 people.

The difference between New Orleans and Detroit? It only took 2 days for New Orleans to be a ruined city.

How NOT to rebuild Detroit

Detroit has surpassed Cleveland as the nation's most impoverished big city, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey.

Survey figures released Tuesday show 33.6 percent - or more than one-third - of Detroit's residents lived at or below the federal poverty line in 2004, the largest percentage of any U.S. city of 250,000 or more people.

Sweet.

Detroit Most Impoverished City

Apple Computer is coming to the rescue of Detroit's schoolchildren and, in doing so, may finally push Michigan to nuke its failed public high school system and start over.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm will announce Tuesday that the California computer maker and master of the red-hot iPod will help finance, equip and advise a small top-quality high school for Detroit students at most risk of being left behind.

Where was this when I was growing up? I had to settle for a seminar at Inacomp for the release of the Apple ][. Favorite moment? Playing Apple Panic.

Apple brings hope to Detroit

Only about half of this year's high school graduates have the reading skills they need to succeed in college, and even fewer are prepared for college-level science and math courses, according to a yearly report from ACT, which produces one of the nation's leading college admissions tests.

Many Going to College Aren't Ready, Report Finds

"Although in some ways it's 60 years too late, it's gratifying to see that this blatant instance of injustice has finally been recognized for what it was -- a legal lynching," Vodicka said.

Every once and awhile, a restless soul finds peace.

Maid pardoned 60 years after execution

However, the situation changes for the opposite, when a man reaches the mysterious age of 33 years. When a man gains life experience, he realizes that he does not need his wife's appraisal; a man becomes tired of his wife's dominating position in the house. As a rule, a man realizes his own importance in the family in his thirties. On the other hand, a woman is already used to being the first in everything: she definitely starts acting adequately in an attempt to preserve her family leadership. It is easy to imagine, what happens in a once friendly and happy family afterwards. The vast majority of divorces is registered with 30 or 40-year-old people.

Despite the broken English, I can definitely relate to this article's conclusions.

Men physically unable to repulse potential lovers, psychologists say

Schools are complex social settings where students, teachers, administrators, and parents interact to shape a child’s educational experience. Any effort to improve educational outcomes for America’s children requires a dynamic understanding of the environments in which children learn. In "The Social Organization of Schooling," editors Larry Hedges and Barbara Schneider assemble researchers from the fields of education, organizational theory, and sociology to provide a new framework for understanding and analyzing America’s schools and the many challenges they face.

"The Social Organization of Schooling" closely examines the varied components that make up a school’s social environment. Contributors Adam Gamoran, Ramona Gunter, and Tona Williams focus on the social organization of teaching. Using intensive case studies, they show how positive professional relations among teachers contribute to greater collaboration, the dissemination of effective teaching practices, and ultimately, a better learning environment for children. Children learn more from better teachers, but those best equipped to teach often opt for professions with higher social stature, such as law or medicine. In his chapter, Robert Dreeben calls for the establishment of universal principles and practices to define good teaching, arguing that such standards are necessary to legitimize teaching as a high status profession. "The Social Organization of Schooling" also looks at how social norms in schools are shaped and reinforced by interactions among teachers and students. ! Sociologist Maureen Hallinan shows that students who are challenged intellectually and accepted socially are more likely to embrace school norms and accept responsibility for their own actions. Using classroom observations, surveys, and school records, Daniel McFarland finds that group-based classroom activities are effective tools in promoting both social and scholastic development in adolescents. "The Social Organization of Schooling" also addresses educational reforms and the way they affect a school’s social structures. Examining how testing policies affect children’s opportunities to learn, Chandra Muller and Kathryn Schiller find that policies which increased school accountability boosted student enrollment in math courses, reflecting a shift in the school culture towards higher standards.

Employing a variety of analytical methods, "The Social Organization of Schooling" provides a sound understanding of the social mechanisms at work in our educational system. This important volume brings a fresh perspective to the many ongoing debates in education policy and is essential reading for anyone concerned with the future of America’s children.

The Social Organization Of Schooling

I need to create a few new playlists in iTunes so that I can stop using "shuffle mode" when I play my iPod during social gatherings. As the embarrassing conversation lull during last night's dinner party revealed, it was a bad idea to rip the "Star Trek II" soundtrack.

ah... so true.

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