The Neosho Daily News this week included a news release from Newton Learning, the summer school arm of Edison Schools, which indicates the company is taking partial credit for improved MAP scores for McDonald County.
Newton has been operating McDonald County's summer school for the past few years and has been raking in money for the district.
No lawsuits coming from that direction, apparently.
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So much for good citizenship and responsibility from the networks and from our local television stations. All three networks have limited the Republican National Convention to about an hour a night, with no time at all on Monday. ABC pre-empted the convention on Monday to carry an exhibition NFL game (or as NFL officials like to call them pre-season). Last night, Channel 12 even pre-empted ABC's coverage of the convention to carry a Kansas City Chiefs exhibition football game. Then when the late news came on Channel 12, it began reporting about President Bush's speech, when it could have simply picked up ABC's feed and carried the remainder of it live.
Yes, the conventions are boring and totally scripted compared to the way they used to be in the past, but they are still an important part of American citizenship. We could do without such educational programming as "Fear Factor" and "The Drew Carey Show" to learn some of the things we need to know to make a responsible decision in November.
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The ZAP (Zeros Aren't Permitted) program is now in place at South and more and more students have been zapped each time. The program not only stressed the importance of turning in assignments, but simply of meeting deadlines, something the students are going to have to do the rest of their lives. Amazingly, some students have not turned in a single paper during the first three weeks of school. Hopefully, this program will help them (it has worked wonders in other school districts) and we can help these kids along the road to becoming more productive and successful members of society.
If not, at least they aren't going to be zapped for the next three days as the Labor Day weekend starts for students (and teachers) later today.