This article is very helpful. The tips are good for the times in which we now live. I didn't think about tuitions going up for college in these troubled times. If things continue as they recently have, no one but the wealthy will be able to afford a higher education. It will be like the Middle Ages again with a wealthy elite. Maybe the way out of the economic crisis is to put more people in college instead of less.

I don't understand what is wrong with teaching both. Let the children hear both arguments and decide for themselves. This is America is it not? We do still have freedom of choice. What's the harm in educating the children and letting them choose which path they wish to follow.

The problem I have with this article is the author on one hand dismisses the idea of a standardized test, but on the other hand discusses the problems Texas education faces using the standardized SAT results as his evidence. I do not believe that TAKS is the answer. I also believe that some students would benefit from a work program as opposed to preparation for college (some students will not and should not go). The problem lies in finding a suitable assessment tool that does not cause teachers to "teach to the test".

I really like the President's plan. It seems to approach the education issue on multiple fronts. I think early help intitiatives can be truly helpful in lower economic areas of the country. I like that he doesn't want standards reduced to achieve "success" as has commonly been done in the past. Working families should get tax breaks, as has been suggested in the plan, for higher education. The main problems that loom, however, are how to implement and pay for these ideas. I disagree with the President's critics in that I believe that fixing education and fixing the economy go hand in hand for the future of our country. The President has been much farther to the right on education than I ever imagined he would be.

In theory, I support EOC's. The main arguments I've had against TAKS is the amount of time it takes away from instruction, and the timing of the test. With testing taking place in Feb. and April, and benchmarking before that, we are spending far too much time testing. The benchmark usually proves that the students don't know what we haven't taught them yet. If the EOC's can reduce the amount of time testing, and accurately assess learning of skills, then I would strongly support them.

What an inciteful article. It is really cool to see where technology is leading us. My son is about to be 11, so this new use of electronic theses and dissertations will probably be commonplace by the time we are looking at getting scholarships. The days of seeing the school counselor to sign up for scholarships is soon to be a thing of the past I'm thinking.

It is amazing to me that there are schools that would cheat in this fashion. I really was unaware that schools would treat electives as "honors" courses to get by the rule. As an AP teacher, I can see the reason behind exempting AP courses, although my district does not. The AP curriculum is very demanding. A student could get in an AP course and do poorly enough to fail before being able to get out with a schedule change. Exempting electives and "hobbies" is flat out trying to cheat the system. I wish the article would have cited examples of cheating districts. I would like to see the list of classes they exempt.

This article tempts the reader, as all political articles do, into believing that education is a simple fix. From my twenty years of teaching, I can assure you it is not. Although it throws around figures for tax credits and savings, it does not do an adequate job of discussing where the money is going to come from, much like the rest of the stimulus plan. The root of the problem in education is the unpreparedness of the students upon arrival. Tutoring can solve a lot of these problems by giving students what they really need, one on one attention. Maybe the government should help fund these sessions instead.