Extra Credit Reading: Tuesday, December 19, 2006

California junior high school history teacher Polski3 wonders aloud whether or not students' grasp of history ought to be a discrete component of NCLB or should history as a separate subject be allowed to go extinct.

Now it would be dishonest of us if we said that we liked The Queen of All Testing the globe-trotting U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings. One of the reasons is that she seems more concerned about hob-nobbing with folks like the real Queen and visiting exotic oriental locales on yet another of her many taxpayer-financed sight-seeing junkets goodwill tours and less interested in spending time taking a look around some American schools that are in need of help. Until now. Thanks, Ms. Spellings, for spending a little time down here in southern California getting to know some inner-city American kids and teachers.

It is a given that high school students tend to stay-up late and then sleep-in late. In order to cope with this reality, a number of high schools around the country are exploring the idea of opening later in the day.

Joanne Jacobs has the scoop on how even primary school-age students are now studying the rigorous International Baccalaureate program, which was originally designed for college-bound high school students. -----------------------------See our latest EduPosts here and yesterday's Extra Credit Reading there.