WEEKEND QUOTABLES
"We are telling people who have worked for governments, and who have been told for years how much their pension would be, that the number is going to change." -- Ward RoomGeri Armitage, Naperville North High School teacher
“The state has not paid their portion — we have paid our dues — and now they are attacking us from every which way saying it’s our fault when, in reality, this is their obligation to us.” -- Daily Eastern NewsCharles Blow
As [Michelle] Alexander confirmed to me Friday: “Today there are more African-American adults under correctional control — in prison or jail, on probation or parole — than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the
Suspended learning
What's the point?
Crazy suspension and expulsion stories have become almost commonplace in this era of zero tolerance,especially in the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings. The Washington Post ran a story last week about a 6-year-old boy being suspended in Montgomery County, Md. for pointing his finger at another student and saying "pow."Then there's the story of Courtni Webb, the 17-year old San Francisco high school student, suspended for a poem she wrote about Sandy Hook.
But these incidents, often an ill-considered, bureaucratic response to the real fears of gun violence, mask the