Heeeeyyyyy, Youuuuuu Guyyyyyys!

The Electric Company on DVD. Could I be any more excited? Not for my kids—for me. And Scott. We’ve been waiting for this for ten years.

Watch the trailer on Windows Media Player or Quicktime.

More on that National Curriculum Bill

Cobranchi is covering this one, too.

The New York Times reported that an unnamed appropriations bill in the Senate has this nice little amendment that will basically force a turnover of all g-school curricula to federal control.

Here’s the Times article.

When Republican senators quietly tucked a major new student aid program into the 774-page budget bill last month, they not only approved a five-year, $3.75 billion initiative. They also set up what could be an important shift in American education: for the first time the federal government will rate the academic rigor of the nation’s 18,000 high schools.

The measure, backed by the Bush administration and expected to pass the House when it returns next month, would provide $750 to $1,300 grants to low-income college freshmen and sophomores who have completed “a rigorous secondary school program of study” and larger amounts to juniors and seniors majoring in math, science and other critical fields.

It leaves it to the secretary of education to define rigorous, giving her a new foothold in matters of high school curriculums.

Apparently, this draft of the bill does not include private-school students or home-educated kids. Which is an interesting oversight, but one for which I am grateful. But I think the idea of a federally “defined” public-school curriculum is a bad idea with dangerous possibilities, and I’ll be watching this one like a hawk.

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BoB Awards Update

Bless their hearts, those hardworking folks behind the BoB Awards have persevered this week through enough technical difficulties to stump NASA. To all of you who wrote me to say that you had been unable to vote more than once, or (in some cases) unable to vote at all, please don’t be concerned—it seems this was a problem across the board, affecting all the finalists. I am genuinely stunned and honored by the number of Bonny Glen votes which did make the tally, and I want to thank all of my supporters from the bottom of my heart. Wow! This has been an exciting and extremely gratifying week! Many, many thanks to all of you.

Because of the polling glitches, the BoB folks decided to end the voting period as of 4 p.m. Eastern time yesterday. Now the judges will grade the finalist blogs for readability, presentation, and content, and these scores will be added to the points earned by popular vote. This means that it is still anyone’s race. Best wishes to all my fellow finalists. I have so enjoyed exploring some new blogs during the course of this contest, and it has been a pleasure to hear from the new readers who stopped by to check out Bonny Glen. Again, thank you all!