Two letters in Education Week rip a study that claimed fourth grade reading scores have declined or held even in 15 of the largest states since the passage of No Child Left Behind. Attacking politically motivated “commando research,” Eric Hanushek writes:

In the garbled presentation of various “facts” and conclusions about the No Child Left Behind law and student performance, the study by unnamed Stanford and Berkeley researchers violates virtually all rules of science.

Reading scores improved in 12 of the 15 states in the study, he writes, and held steady or rose in the other three.

John Kerry cited the study as evidence that NCLB hasn’t worked.

Check out a new blog, Professor Plum’s Relentless Rants on Eduquackery.

Instapundit surrogate Ann Althouse is right on in her critique of the use of Wisconsin students — during class time — to get out the vote in Democratic neighborhoods.

Dirty dancing is a constitutional right, claim students at a Washington-area high school. It’s a matter of free expression.

Gerald Black, principal of Loudoun Valley High School, required students to sign a pledge that they will “face each other” on the dance floor for the Homecoming Dance. Drugs, alcohol and “freak dancing” also are banned, reports the Washington Post. Black wanted to stop “back-to-front dancing in which a girl gyrates her hips against the pelvis of a guy standing behind her.” He thinks it’s suggestive.

But the pledge has sparked a student-led protest about freedom and self-expression. More than 300 students signed a petition complaining that the rule is “arbitrary, irregular and in violation of . . . First Amendment freedoms of expression in all forms,” said senior Anton Soukup, 17.

Another student printed a T-shirt with the message, “How are we supposed to do the hokeypokey if we can’t turn ourselves around?”

. . . “This is our generation’s version of the twist,” said Jessica Nauta, 17. “A lot of older people think it’s a sexual act. It’s really not.”

Count me among the older people who think it’s a sexual act performed in public at a school event. I like the T-shirt, though.

Via Little Green Footballs, here’s another story where free expression is broadly defined.

Closing the achievement gap requires students to take tough academic classes, concludes a new Education Trust West report, “In Their Own Words: Why Students and Parents Want and Need Rigorous Coursework in California’s High Schools”

“Smart” toys like Baby Einstein and Brainy Baby may turn babies into passive observers, says a NY Times story.

While researchers have found that some babies who are deprived of certain stimuli during the first years of life never completely recover, they have yet to demonstrate that increasing stimulation makes babies smarter. And some experts believe that the toys may even be detrimental to development because they lead children to focus on memorization rather than imagination and problem-solving abilities.

“Some of these toys are very entertaining and they make the child a passive observer,” said Dr. Kathleen Kiely Gouley, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the New York University Child Study Center. “You want the child to engage with the world. If the toy does everything, if it sings and beeps and shows pictures, what does the child have to do?”

The best toys require the most from the child.

Teen-age girls are paying plastic surgeons for breast implants, reports the Washington Post.

For decades, plastic surgery for teenage girls meant one thing — a nose job, frequently performed during the summer between high school and college. While rhinoplasty remains the most common cosmetic operation for teenagers, doctors are performing an increasing number of procedures such as breast implants, liposuction and tummy tucks on young women like (Nicole) Casto and even girls as young as 14.

The enormous popularity of reality TV shows such as “Extreme Makeover,” “The Swan” and MTV’s “I Want a Famous Face,” as well as an explosion of Web sites that extol the virtues of cosmetic medicine, has fueled the desire of adolescent girls to alter their bodies permanently, and they are finding more surgeons willing to oblige them. Breast implants and liposuction are now bestowed by parents as graduation or birthday gifts. Some doctors say they have performed breast augmentations on baby-boomer mothers and their teenage daughters.

The lead example is a 19-year-old single mother who works as a waitress. Wouldn’t you think she’d have better uses for the money?

I did a lot of research on the safety of breast implants when it was a hot issue. Basically, there’s no evidence that implants cause autoimmune disease or any other disease, as once feared; the surgery may leave uncomfortable or painful scar tissue.

On the other hand, Number 2 Pencil links to a story saying that modesty is in vogue.

Skin is no longer in, say the trend-spotters. Not even for teens and twentysomethings.

Miniskirts, skimpy tops and those embarrassing, thong-baring jeans are on the way out. They are being replaced by high-waist pants, long-sleeve tunics and knee-grazing skirts.

The latest fashion watchword is modesty.

. . . In a single season, fashion has flipped from cheesy to cutesy.

There’s some backlash involved, but it’s mostly that fashionistas need to keep changing styles so shoppers feel the need to buy new clothes.

You can participate in a survey by University of Tennessee researchers of how people use the Internet for political information. Follow the link.

Erin O’Connor, now teaching in a private boarding school, responds to Jonathan Yardley’s attack on one of the most assigned books in high school English classes: J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. Yardley finds the book mawkish and the hero narcissistic:

. . . “The Catcher in the Rye” can be fobbed off on kids as a book about themselves. It is required reading as therapy, a way to encourage young people to bathe in the warm, soothing waters of resentment (all grown-ups are phonies) and self-pity without having to think a lucid thought. Like that other (albeit marginally better) novel about lachrymose preppies, John Knowles’s “A Separate Peace” (1960), “The Catcher in the Rye” touches adolescents’ emotional buttons without putting their minds to work. It’s easy for them, which makes it easy for teacher.

Arguably, J.D. Salinger invented modern adolescence by establishing “whining rebellion as essential to adolescence,” Yardley writes.

All literature is manipulative, responds BookSlut, who thinks Catcher is one of the great American books.

I found Holden Caulfield both affecting and irritating when I read the book, which I think was assigned for English class. He was a whiner, but I felt sorry for him.

In a Milwaukee speech, Bill Cosby preached parental responsibility and criticized the media, reports School Information Systems, which links to a column by Eugene Kane in the Journal-Sentinel:

Many of his words were met with cries of agreement, including shouts of “Tell it, Bill” or “Preach, Dr. Cosby!”

Just like we were all in church.

Whether it was describing teenage pregnancy rates as an example of young girls without fathers “wanting something to love” or young men who go out and attack and rob because they aren’t allowed to reveal how much they hurt inside over their turbulent home situations, his comments were as sharply formed as a surgeon’s scalpel.

. . . He said he wanted the audience to consider his comments as if they came from a favorite grandfather who wanted his children and grandchildren to do the right thing.

Cosy also said, “The teacher can’t hug your child anymore – you need to hug your child.”