The Catholic girls’ school didn’t look like much. Sgt. Mom explains her choice for her daughter, who grew up to be Cpl. Blondie.

The school she would have gone to is around the corner from my house in deepest Northside suburbia; a large, lavishly new facility, air conditioned, a generous library with all the goodies, football team and band, well-paid, accredited teachers in large modern classrooms. The student body would have been mixed, but mostly middle class. St. Francis was old and small in comparison— barely 250 girls at peak– the library a joke and the textbooks worn and verging perilously on the out of date. The parent’s association’s main goal the years Blondie was there was to get window AC units installed in all the classrooms. The gymnasium remained as nature intended, and Twinkie the school’s antiquated bus almost never made it further than the end of the driveway before breaking down. The parents of many of her friends were working-class Hispanics, making sacrifices to ensure the best education they could for their daughters. Placed in the balance and tipping it well in favor was that the classes were small, the teachers exacting and the standards rigorous.

Students were expected to learn; there were no excuses for failure. They learned.

Blair Hornstine, who sued her school district for $2.7 million for trying to name a co-valedictorian, has settled for $60,000, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer. She’ll get $15,000; the rest will go to her lawyers.

Blair Hornstine was reviled for filing a lawsuit to prevent a classmate from sharing valedictorian honors; she felt compelled to skip her graduation ceremonies. Due to the publicity, her plagiarized newspaper articles were revealed; Harvard withdrew its acceptance. Poetic justice can be harsh.

It appears Hornstine will not start college this fall. If she did get in somewhere at the last minute, her family has kept it quiet. Well, she’s supposed to have some variation of chronic fatigue syndrome. She could use a year off.

By a newly passed Illinois law, Chicago public schools must identify students who are at risk of becoming criminals, and take them on a prison tour. Gosh, that will be inspiring. It’s a copy of the old “Scared Straight” program that was proven ineffective.

If Arnold Schwarzenegger becomes governor of California, would he be an advocate of school choice? Lisa Snell reads the tea leaves and sees hope. I wish the candidate would tell us himself. So far, he’s been all platitudes. (He thinks educating children is darned important!)

I’m getting depressed. Cruz Bustamante is a nicer, dumber Gray Davis. Bill Simon and Tom McClintock are too conservative for me — and for most Californians. Nobody else has a chance to win. In fact, Cruz and Arnie are the only ones with a realistic chance.

I’m getting dozens of messages per hour saying that e-mail I never sent can’t be delivered or that attachments I never attached include a virus. The messages are labeled “thank you,” “my details,” “wicked screensaver” and “your application.” And “Warning: E-mail Viruses Detected.” As a Mac user, I’ve felt immune to most of the usual worms, viruses and whatnot. If anyone can tell me how to deal with this, I’d appreciate it. And if I don’t answer your e-mail, it may be because I accidentally deleted it with the junk. (I’m also getting a lot of legitimate e-mail due to a free-lance piece that just ran, so it’s particularly frustrating to be flooded with junk.)

Update: It’s SoBig. Here’s advice on how to protect your computer.

Japanese schools will grade students on patriotism, reports Layman’s Logic. The Japanese think the younger generation is poorly behaved. (Is there any nation that doesn’t think kids aren’t what they used to be?) Japanese bureaucrats hope a little old-time patriotism will be the cure.

Is the moon made of cheese? Cambridge University is asking applicants off-the-wall questions to test their “lateral thinking.”

Actually, the moon one is easy. The answer is: No.

The survey of 1,000 Oxbridge candidates also shows would-be Oxford law students had to compare Timotei and Tesco own-brand shampoos.

No such question would be allowed in the U.S. It discriminates against the bald.

According to the Daily Mail, a candidate wanting to study medicine at Cambridge was told: “Convince me to watch you do a dance performance.”

Oxford University claim their questions are intended to test applicants’ ability to think laterally, form a logical argument and express themselves coherently.

A spokesman said: “It would just be to see how a student reacts to something they haven’t been taught.

God forbid students should be evaluated on whether they’ve learned what they’ve been taught. No, they need to demonstrate substance-free glibness to have a shot at an elite education.

Via Kimberly Swygert, who also reports that conservative students at her alma mater, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, are demanding a commitment to political diversity.

Committee for a Better Carolina (members) . . . say conservative students are uncomfortable and intimidated on a campus that is overwhelmingly liberal, and they want the university to commit to big changes.

First, they will ask (Chancellor James) Moeser to include political affiliation and ideology in the university’s official nondiscrimination policy. They also want the university to devote more money to bring in speakers from a wider variety of ideological perspectives. And they want the university to conduct an investigation into the campus climate for conservatives — similar to the study conducted last year on the atmosphere for gay students.

The group also wants UNC to hire more conservative professors. Don’t hold your breath on that one, guys.

Shark’s got a great post on Marion the Disciplinarian.

Teacher pay went up. The economy went down. As a result, there’s no shortage of teachers in most subjects and in most places. However, there’s still a demand for math, science, special education and bilingual teachers. And don’t expect inner-city schools to be staffed with experienced, qualified teachers unless the seniority system changes.

Can this really be a trend? Teen-agers who enjoy reading are forming book clubs, reports the Washington Post.

“A lot of the kids [in BookDivas.com] came back and said, ‘I didn’t mind being a little bit of a nerd who reads all day, but it’s great to know there’s a million nerds out there who read like me,’ ” said Mark Schiller, co-founder of Electric Artists.

This summer, the Ellicott City teenagers have tackled such works as “Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett, “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” by Tom Wolfe and “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” by Hunter S. Thompson. Next up: “The Autobiography of Malcolm X.”

“We all read, and we all talk about the books that we read, but we never read the same stuff,” said Kate Flanagan, 17, a senior at Centennial High School who came up with the idea for the book club with two friends shortly before last school year ended in June. “This kind of gives us a base we can start from in conversation.”

Teen Reads, which has advice on starting a book club, seems to be focused on middle school readers. (The site does feature I Capture the Castle, which is a good read for older kids and adults.) I get more traffic than Seventeen magazine’s Book Divas site. Still, even this is a mini-trend for the most literate teen-agers, it’s all for the good.