Is our land of opportunity turning into a dead end for Hispanic students who graduate high school college-ready but lack a pathway to legalize their citizenship status?

On March 22 Connect for Kids hosted a Talktime Live! online chat on the Dream Act, with experts on education issues faced by immigrants and a student who will speak from experience.

Congressional reporters say many of President Bush's FY2007 budget proposals drew a “decidedly cool reception” from House committees that submitted their annual "views and estimates" to the Budget Committee to help it in drafting the congressional budget resolution for FY2007.

Every day, it seems, technology opens up a fertile new market that never existed before. Take online gamers. Certainly a diverse crew, weighted a bit towards the male, but representing a wide range of ages and interests. But three-year-olds? Just never occured to me. That's one of the many ways that I am not like Disney, which is launching a new $50-a-year subscription service for preschoolers.

When you were in college, how many times did you call home for comfort, advice, a recipe -- and maybe some help paying that long-distance bill you ran up while breaking up with your boy/girlfriend? Or, say you went to work after high school. Did your folks lend you a hand with that first month's security deposit on a new apartment? Bring you a meal and a care package of pots, pans, and laundry detergent?

Just yesterday I was whining about how Tuesday night's State of the Union speech lacked substance. Turns out the substance, in this case, was the sideshow.

I'm talking, of course, about the T-shirts. Talk about your teachable moments!

Pity the poor headline writers. Last night's State of the Union speech was a snoozer -- President Bush didn't just bury the lead, he eliminated it altogether.

"Bush calls for an optimistic America" -- the Washington Times.

Thank you, DC Board of Education.

That's not something you hear me say very often. But the Board moved recently (finally!) to correct a misguided policy that has been damaging the educational prospects of the city's homeless children for the past decade.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you!"
"Look me in the eye and tell me where you've been."
"Don't look away when I'm talking to you!"

Seems like we spend an awful lot of time telling kids what to do with their eyes...and most of the time, we're just getting in the way of good communication.

How much does it cost to deliver a unit of education -- say, a semester of Algebra I -- through a computer? How does that compare to the cost of doing the same by means of a teacher in a classroom? Is it essentially the same product? And if it is cheaper to explain to teens how to solve for X using the tools the computer age has given us, who should realize the savings?

Scientists, for some reason, never seem to rise to the top -- or even very far from the bottom -- of our society's list of role models. Which is odd, because what could be more exciting than trying to answer the really big questions? Today I read something about research coming from an Italian neuroscientist -- Giacomo Rizzolatti of the University of Parma -- that gave me a bad case of white-coat envy. (Rizzolatti's on-line faculty profile includes links to some of his work.)