Lake Superior State University has released its list of overused, misused and useless words and phrases that should be banned in 2004. “Metrosexual” leads the list, which includes “bling bling” and “shock and awe.”

On the other hand, SF Gate declares “metrosexual” the top word of 2003, beating out “bling bling.”

Consider this post “ripped from the headlines.”

Bullying has gone high-tech, reports the Christian Science Monitor. Hiding under screen names, kids use web sites, instant messaging, chat rooms, text messaging and e-mail to spread nasty rumors or make threats. One boy circulated his ex-girlfriend’s picture, photoshopped onto a pornographic photo. Cyberbullying has some advice on how to fight back.

Closed K-marts are being turned into schools in Florida. Remodeling is cheaper than starting from scratch. And there’s already plenty of parking.

Number 2 Pencil suggests leaving the hot dog warmer and the Icee machine.

Black female students are more likely than ever to enroll in college and earn degrees. Black males who make it to college often fail to earn a degree, reports the New York Times, focusing on an anti-dropout program for black males at Medgar Evers College.

Watching Simon Jackson in class is like watching a man who is conflicted about being in college. For long stretches, he huddles silently in the back corner, his head sunk into his bulky jacket. But every so often he strides to the front of the room to chat with the professor or to write on the chalkboard, self-assured to the point of cockiness.

A 10th-grade dropout who earned a high school equivalency diploma, Mr. Jackson, 21, is now a freshman at Medgar Evers College in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, eager, he says, to get a college degree.

“I was in school trying to learn,” he said. “I liked to learn. I still do. That’s why I’m here now.”

As a black man, he is also a rare commodity that the college, part of the City University of New York, is eager to hold on to. The class Mr. Jackson was sitting in recently was a freshman orientation class created this year for men only, in hopes of keeping black male students on track.

Over the course of the semester, class discussions veered from little things, like ways to remember to bring books to school, to how the students felt when they could not get waited on in stores and how difficult it was to go anywhere, even to school, without money in their pockets.

How to remember to bring books to school?

The story quotes a researcher who says the problem starts in Head Start, where black boys are likely to be labeled “developmentally delayed” and shunted into special education programs. Implicitly, special ed is portrayed as a dead end, not a chance to learn. Unfortunately, that’s often accurate.

A newspaper reporter is looking for student bloggers in the D.C. area, including Maryland and northern Virginia. If you’re out there, let me know and I’ll pass some names on. He’s also looking for a national expert to comment on student blogging. My brain has gone on holiday. I gave him some edblog web sites but I’m blanking on names. Here’s your chance for fame. No fortune.

Photographs of nude Barbie dolls being menaced by kitchen appliances are protected free speech, a federal appeals court has ruled. Mattel had sued, charging copyright infringement.

The artist had argued that the photo series, which also included a photo of Barbie dolls wrapped in tortillas and covered in salsa in a casserole dish in a lit oven, was meant to critique the “objectification of women” and “beauty myth” associated with the popular doll.

Works for me.

Also read James Lileks on bondage issues involving JetSki Barbie.

It took 17 minutes to free Barbie from the wires, plastic garottes, tape and screws that binded her to the box. If you did not hire bondage enthusiasts to design the packages, parents might have an easier time on Christmas morn. Okay? Okay.

By next Christmas, Mattel probably will introduce Nude KitchenFighting Barbie. Well, not nude. Because the money is in the accessories and outfits.

Keyboard-happy students aren’t learning cursive handwriting anymore. The National Cursive Handwriting Contest was canceled after 75 years because the entries were “garbage.”

South Carolina, home state of Kimberly Swygert is one of the few that requires children to learn handwriting.

My elementary school didn’t teach cursive till fourth grade, which gave us more time to develop the necessary coordination. But then they required us to use cartridge pens for cursive; no one knew why ballpoints were banned. The cartridge pens leaked and clogged, adding another level of challenge to handwriting practice. Pen flicking, which sent ink flying around the room, was a popular indoor sport. At any rate, I have to say that I love keyboards.

Legal rulings have made it impossible to enforce school rules, argues sociologist Richard Arum in the Washington Post.

At a time when schools face increased challenges to socialize youth for productive roles in society, the courts have created a complex set of requirements, including increased reporting, that have made well-meaning teachers and administrators reluctant to respond to and control student violence and misbehavior in ways the public would support.

Inner-city kids suffer the most because they’re most likely to attend schools made unsafe by out-of-control students.

Arum is the author of Judging School Discipline: The Crisis of Moral Authority.

A majority of kindergarteners now attend for a full day, reports the LA Times.

 Spurred by demographic, academic and sometimes economic factors, states and local school districts are embracing full-day kindergarten at a rapid rate.

In 1969, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, most American kindergartners attended shortened, usually half-day programs. Only 11% were in programs considered full-day — defined as more than four hours but usually closer to six. By 2000, the percentage enrolled in full-day programs had grown to 60%.

Children who start school without English fluency benefit from extra time in kindergarten. Working and would-be working moms like the extra hours of free child care.

Homeschooling makes you rich: A fantasy book about a dragon, Eragon, written by a homeschooled teen-ager in Paradise Valley, Montana, is outselling Harry Potter. From The Telegraph:

For a young man of 20, Christopher Paolini has lived a rather sheltered life. He has never been to school, never held a regular job and still lives in the old farmhouse along the banks of Montana’s Yellowstone River, where he grew up.

When he is not busy constructing a hobbit hut with an 8ft tunnel near the river, he spends much of his time happily lost in a fantasy world of his own creation – a place he calls Alagaesia, where dragons roam and battles rage among sword-wielding tribes.

This time last year, he was just another geeky teen with too much time on his hands. But now, thanks to Eragon, his 500-page rousing adventure story set in his imaginary world, young Christopher is suddenly rich.

His parents, former members of a survivalist cult, self-published the book. Then novelist Carl Hiaasen took his son fishing in Montana, discovered the book and touted it to his editors at Knopf.

His father greeted the news of Knopf’s interest with caution and decided to drive a hard bargain. He hired a powerful New York agent to do the deal. In the end, they secured a considerable advance from the publisher.

“We may live out in the middle of nowhere,” Kenneth says, with a sly grin, “but we didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday.”

The family has used the profits to buy a new computer and a plasma-screen TV.