Obama's speech to nation's students

By KBell in According to K

President Obama will be giving his third annual back-to-school speech on Wednesday. The White House says the president will encourage students to stay in school study hard, set goals and believe in themselves. Sounds noble enough to me! But of ...

Teach to test? Changes to No Child Left Behind

By KBell in According to K

I don't have a lot of time today, but I wanted to point you toward an important national story about changes President Obama is making to the No Child Left Behind Act. The LA Times reports: "President Obama this morning ...

Holy Mum!

By KBell in According to K

Today, our local editor Becky Cooper briefed me on a phenomenon that, in all my 24 years, I never knew existed. Homecoming mums. What the? I feel as if I've been lied to my whole life. Why would no one ...

All the cool kids are doing it

By KBell in According to K

Nominating a Top Teacher or Star Student, that is. One of the best phone calls I get to make each week is to schools informing them one of their teachers has been nominated to be recognized in Sunday's Advocate. The ...

Should students be allowed access to gay/lesbian websites?

By KBell in According to K

A school district in a small, Mid-Missouri town could be setting the precedent for laws concerning students' access to educational websites about gay, lesbian and transgender issues. Camdenton, Mo. schools are refusing to cave to letters from the American Civil ...

Would you risk jail for your child's education?

By KBell in According to K

I'm a little late posting this, so you may already be familiar with the story about an Ohio mother who was convicted and jailed for using her father's address to enroll her two daughters in a high-performing school district. Kelley ...

Al-Jazeera in Texas

By KBell in According to K

Once upon a time, a journalist from the international news organization, al-Jazeera, ventured into Texas territory. He claims he was not welcomed by a school in Booker, simply because he worked for the news company based in the Middle East ...

How to not look like an idiot

By KBell in According to K

There's at least one class at the University of Missouri that's infamous for weeding out not-gonna-cut-it freshmen and making even straight-A students cringe at their insistence to go to college. It was a required course -- micro-economics -- and it ...

How should schools teach 9/11?

By KBell in According to K

All of us in the newsroom are working on a special 9/11 package for the upcoming 10-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks. As the education reporter, I'll be delving into how schools plan on teaching the topic. I was a ...

Cause of ALS discovered?

By KBell in According to K

Late last night, our health reporter, J.R. Ortega, sent me a somewhat obscure news story saying scientists had discovered the cause of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, AKA Lou Gehrig's Disease. I was skeptical. But by this morning, the story seems to ...