education

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Every weekday a few minutes before 8 a.m., more than a dozen teen-agers line up in front of The Lobby cocktail lounge in a strip mall located in a blue-collar neighborhood.Across the street is an adult book club. Down the block is a gentlemen's club featuring exotic dancers.

Taxpayers pay millions of dollars every month to educate tens of thousands of high school students who rarely or never show up for class, part of a growing trend of high absenteeism at privately operated schools.

The College Board -- maker of the SAT college entrance exam -- has announced a new standardized test it said it developed because of popular demand.The two-hour test, called ReadiStep, is for eighth-graders, and is aimed at helping educators see which skills students need to develop to be prepared for high school and college.

Dear Dr. Fournier:

What's your major?There are hundreds, if not thousands, of possible answers to that question.Students can choose from majors as common as business or as unusual as blacksmithing.

TACOMA, Wash. -- The sixth-graders fidgeted in their seats with laptop computers open on their desks while their teacher pointed to an electronic white board."You have to write a one-page paper, so where are you going to save your paper?" asked teacher Deb North."Our school folders," replied 11-year-old Emma Bachmeier.

It's parent-teacher conference time again.Here are some suggestions on how to do it right, from a principal, a teacher and a parent.What a principal says:Heidi Aranda, principal of Ochoa Elementary School in Tucson, Ariz., is a big believer in strong home-school relationships.

Students at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School have a leg up on some of their competition. To raise the visibility of its finance programs, the school has invested $1.2 million in a capital markets trading lab.

LAS VEGAS -- English professor Sherry Rosenthal runs a public blog devoted in part to exposing her bosses' alleged incompetence.Take this curt but choice two-line entry she posted July 15 about Michael Richards, her college president, and his supporters:"If the Merry Mikesters were birds what kind would they be?"Answer: The Dodo!"

Cheryl Salyer's face appeared life-size and grainy on the pixilated screen of a Toshiba laptop.Around the computer, four women huddled over notebooks and discussed learning disabilities with Salyer's head bobbing on the screen.It's common these days for college students to tote a laptop to class. But Salyer goes to class in a laptop.