Members of the Indiana State Teachers Association testified Wednesday before a state education committee that elementary school teachers had been shot “execution style” with pellet guns as part of an active shooter training conducted by the local sheriff’s office, according to the Indianapolis Star. view article

Weeks into a flawed voter citizenship review effort that jeopardized the voting rights of thousands of naturalized citizens, Democratic U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday aligned recent actions of Texas Republican leaders with what she characterized as broader efforts to undermine the U.S. Constitution. view article

SAN ANTONIO — One of the largest school districts in the San Antonio area has announced who its next leader will be. In a Monday night statement, the North East ISD Board of Trustees announced that Dr. Sean Maika will be appointed Interim Superintendent of the district. The superintendent for the past eight years, Dr. Brian G. Gottardy, announced last month that he will retire at the end of the school year. view article

THE proliferation of school districts with four-day weeks has reportedly been a black eye for Oklahoma's reputation. Senate Republicans say they want to make five-day school weeks the norm again. Drafting legislation to put schools back on a five-day schedule is simple, but mustering the political will to make it happen may prove difficult.  Four-day school weeks became possible several years ago when the Legislature changed state law to measure school years by hours instead of days. view article

There is a growing and disturbing trend of anti-intellectual elitism in American culture. It's the dismissal of science, the arts, and humanities and their replacement by entertainment, self-righteousness, ignorance, and deliberate gullibility. Susan Jacoby, author of The Age of American Unreason, says in an article in the Washington Post, "Dumbness, to paraphrase the late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, has been steadily defined downward for several decades, by a combination of heretofore irresistible forces. These include the triumph of video culture over print culture; a disjunction between Americans' rising level of formal education and their shaky grasp of basic geography, science and history; and the fusion of anti-rationalism with anti-intellectualism."  view article

A Mississippi school district has been ordered to desegregate its schools after what the Justice Department called a five-decade-long legal battle. The Cleveland School District, about two hours northwest of Jackson, was told that it must consolidate its schools in order to provide real desegregation for students in the city of about 12,000. view article