education

For a kid, there may be nothing more depressing than the first advertisements for back-to-school sales, which remind them that their summer vacation won’t last forever. The only thing more depressing for parents may be the cost of sending their little ones back to a new classroom.

Humorous academic superlatives are generally handed out in high school yearbooks. Maybe it’s best to keep it that way because a ”Catastrophe Award” for having the most homework excuses given to a third grader at Desert Springs Academy in Arizona is causing controversy.

In general, most youngsters like six-year-old Lori Anne Madison are squarely focused on toys and cartoons. But Madison recently became the youngest person ever to qualify for the Scripps National Spelling Bee in the contest’s 87-year history.

The people at Amazon have emerged yesterday with their annual list of the most well-read cities in America.

There aren’t a lot of red-haired players in the NBA. That’s one of the reasons Patrick Gonzalez, who has red hair, is a fan of Matt Bonner, a ginger-headed back-up center for his hometown San Antonio Spurs. So to pay homage to the sharp-shooting bigman, Gonzalez had a rather accurate image of his favorite player shaved into the back of his head.

The unemployment rate for college graduates is lower than that for people without degrees, but that doesn’t mean they’re having an easy time of it.

Every semester, college students find out whether or not their grades will keep them in good standing at their university. Recently, students at Eastern Michigan University received a disturbing email. “As a result of your Winter 2012 academic performance, you have been dismissed from Eastern Michigan University,” reads the first line of an email that caused many a heart palpation throughout the Y

People always say, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” but Dawn Loggins, an 18-year-old student from North Carolina, actually experienced this life lesson in one of the most heart-wrenching ways. Finding herself homeless several times and earning a living as her high school’s janitor, her dreams of a better life finally came true when she got accepted to Harvard University.

Every parent likes to think their toddler is a genius. But the parents of two-year-old Anthony Popa Urria have the Mensa membership to back that up. Still in diapers, Anthony has been admitted into the high IQ-society on the strength of his 154 IQ, which is just short of the scores of great thinkers Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawkins.

Despite some studies that have shown the ineffectiveness of abstinence-only education for teenagers, several states and even the federal government have doubled down their stance on the controversial sex-ed program. Tennessee has taken the idea one step further.