At the Carnival of Education, hosted by Jenny D this week, Political Calculations has info on average starting salaries for ’05 graduates by degree — chemical engineering is number one again — and average starting pay for “employers’ most offered positions.” For an in-demand job with relatively high pay, study accounting.

California students who take college-prep classes in high school, earn A’s and B’s and go on to the California State University system often find themselves unprepared for college work. Eduwonk guest host Richard Lee Colvin links to a story in the Daily Breeze of Torrance, California on remedial English classes at Cal State Dominguez Hills in Los Angeles. Colvin writes:

Some of the quotes in the story are just heartbreaking. “In high school, I was a 3.8 (grade-point average) student,” one said. “Now that I’m here, it’s embarrassing—there’s so much I just don’t know.”

The story notes that 8 out of 10 first-time freshman enrolled at Dominguez Hills last fall needed remediation in English and 7 in 10 needed remediation in math. Throughout the 23-campus CSU system, only 43% of the entering freshmen were proficient in both classes. Dominguez Hills president James Lyons summed it up: “There’s a disconnect between what they’re doing in high school to earn that GPA, and what is required and expected at the university level.”

“One girl, who graduated in the top 10 percent of her class, asks: “Why is my report card lying?”

California high school juniors now can opt to answer some extra questions on the state exam: If they do well, they won’t have to take the California State University placement exam; if they do poorly they’ll know to spend senior year sharpening their English and/or math skills.

What works in teacher education? We don’t really know concludes a report by the American Educational Research Association. After evaluating the research, “there’s little empirical evidence to show that many of the most common practices in the field produce effective teachers,” Education Week summarizes. The AERA panel recommends ways to strengthen the knowledge base.

I finished going through the copy-edited manuscript of my book and making the changes. The book is in the mail — and e-mail.

My house now has a master bedroom suite (formerly my daughter’s room) and a family room (formerly the hall) and very few books, because they look messy. There is nothing on the counter tops: I had to hunt for soap to wash my hands. The idea is to make the house look uninhabited by someone with exquisite taste.

Well, I’m going to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival on Thursday for four days. I’ll get to stay in a room with towels I can use and visible soap.

“No more pobrecitos,” says Susan Mitchell, the new principal of a low-performing, low-expectations school near San Diego. No more poor little things. The San Diego Union-Trib reports on the transformation of Granger Middle School’s culture:

“Our students, if we think of them as poor things, will never make the A to G [college]requirements,” Mitchell said.

Granger, which serves grades seven to nine, hadn’t offered classes that put students — most are Hispanic or Filipino — on the track to college. Now students take algebra and geometry in eighth and ninth grade.

It is mandatory that students getting D’s and F’s stay after school every day for tutoring. Or, if students don’t complete class work, teachers can opt to send them to the study hall to complete their work even if they’re not failing.

Students who are struggling with algebra or geometry get an additional hour of math and small-group tutoring after school, (coordinator Robert) Bleisch said.

“The biggest reason they fail is not because they don’t understand the concept,” he said. “It’s because of lack of support and lack of motivation.”

At home, some kids have parents who can’t help with homework because of language barriers, or they go home to distractions such as blaring music, television or fighting parents, Bleisch said. Those students excel in study hall, where the environment is better for learning.

Via Ed Wonk, who isn’t allowed to keep children after school for academic reasons. Read the comment by a Granger teacher.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel’s seven-part series on voucher schools concludes with profiles of three schools.

The mother of an 11-year-old girl in Queens, NY is demanding that 200 school year books be recalled because they are unhappy with the sixth-grader’s unattractive photo. The mother thinks the picture — which isn’t all that bad — will haunt the girl for the rest of her life.

Update: Here’s another case of a mother who cares too much.

I’m reminded of a kid in my daughter’s play group years ago who was voted Most Likely To Need Early Psychotherapy.

Expect light blogging for the next few days because I’m going nuts.

I’m fixing up my house so I can put it on the market next weekend. I’ve had painters and power washers; I’m trying to pack up or throw out or hide the clutter. Tomorrow the “stager” comes to move out my furniture and move in nicer things. She’s planning to change my photo wall. Will she bring in photos of better-looking relatives?

I just got the house inspector’s report and the pest inspector’s report. One word: termites. Two words: dry rot. Three words: lots of money.

Speaking of which, I’m about to exhaust my overdraft protection: The check to the painter will bounce if I can’t get more money in the account. This is because I told online Bill Pay to send $11,000 to pay off my $1,100 Visa bill. Wells Fargo says it can’t cancel the payment because it’s been sent electronically; Capital One says it hasn’t received the payment and can’t start the 15-day refund process till it officially arrives. I’m now trying to transfer money from another account to cover the missing $9,900, but my Internet connection is acting weird and won’t complete the transaction.

For several days now, the first time I try to go to a site, I get a “can’t find it” message. The second time it usually works, though not always. Oh, and my major e-mail account isn’t working about half the time.

Yesterday, I went to a memorial service for my former mother-in-law, a wonderful woman. I spent hours making sure the Mercury News would run her obituary in time to inform people about the event. It was a nice obit. It would have been nicer if it had run under her real name, which was Joan Hunter, not Phyllis Hunter.

Today, at my freshly painted but partially disassembled house, I’m hosting a graduation party for my nephew. Why? Well, it’s possible I went crazy several weeks ago, and didn’t notice.

My deadline to get back the copy editing changes on the book is June 23. I’d hoped to finish a week early. Or by tomorrow at the latest. Or by the deadline.

So, light blogging.

Update: My Internet connection and e-mail are working again. Capital One says it will refund the overpayment within 48 hours. I’ve got the overdraft covered. On the flip side, the stager is removing 90 percent of my furniture and possessions. I’m here defending my office.

By the way, this all is ultimately good change leading to a new house and a new husband. It’s just a stressful transition.

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine has started Homeschool Blogger, which offers free hosting and templates.

“The problem with ‘problem’ young-adult fiction” isn’t that it deals with difficult themes such as juvenile delinquency, sex or terrorism, writes Ann Hulbert in Slate. The problem is that these books are simplistic, preachy and often required in school in lieu of real literature.

(Students) learn to look for themes that are right on the surface (“What role does time play in Sura’s life?”). They are instructed to spot trite symbols (“Consider the dead tree as a symbol in the novel. How are classic associations with a tree — life, growth — called into question in The Buffalo Tree? How are they upheld?”). They are asked to probe two-dimensional characters.

We’ve all heard kids complain that they loved, say, To Kill a Mockingbird until their teacher took it apart in class, but the trouble here isn’t that such textual analysis isn’t “fun.” It’s that with formulaic fare, the exercise is critically counterproductive. A book like The Buffalo Tree can’t really bear more than reductive analysis, which reveals it to be a studiously packaged pedagogical lesson, a contrived vehicle for an ultimately upbeat psychosocial message that is at odds with the supposedly realistic setting (“At the end of the novel, Sura . . . has returned home with his spirit and his sanity intact”). But this is just the sort of saccharine simplicity that high-school kids, newly alert to life’s ambiguities, are beginning to pride themselves on seeing through. It’s hard to imagine an exercise more effectively designed to leave kids with the impression that fiction – -in class and out, classic or not — is unlikely to be either very entertaining or enlightening.

A Pennsylvania high school junior is trying to get The Buffalo Tree, which is about a 12-year-old in a juvenile detention center, dropped from the 11th grade reading list. The New York Times called it a battle in the “culture war.” Hulbert wonders why 11th graders can’t read a real book like The Grapes of Wrath or Moby Dick.