No, I'm in Florida and the state has mandated that every high school student in the state take at least one virtual course during the four years of high school. At the same time, our budgets have been slashed and we have a class-size amendment to consider. In practice this means that when that 31st kid signs up for…

I'm sorry! I didn't mean to sound as if I was disagreeing with you. I totally agree that there are ways for members of the community to enrich education in a wide variety of ways. Both sides — business and education — have to be willing to think outside the box to make it work. You are exactly right.

True. In the high school where I teach there are kids every year who sit for AP exams without having taken the accompanying course. But, they are kids who are already comfortable with that material. For example, a prolific reader who is also a decent writer and takes AP Lit after having gotten a reading list from…

Yes, I do teach high school. (Although I did teach elementary school for the first half of my career.) The students who take the virtual classes have a teacher — she's just not in the room. She's communicating with them via the computer in real time as they need her (or as they can get in touch with her), but she…

Those are very good points. College-bound students are sometimes afraid to risk their GPA on an unknown course (or an unknown teacher.) You've got a great idea about taking time out of your day to teach an AP course and you are also correct that school administration would have to think outside the box to make it…

Sadly, I think in five years there were be fewer teachers precisely because of computers. We have four classrooms in my school dedicated to virtual instruction. There is no teacher present — just a proctor who is paid about $10/hour. I think this is the way education is trending. The wealthy will have classroom…

Definitely. I like my job, but I hate being jerked around by every politician and media pundit and billionaire who thinks they know everything about a job they've never done. I don't encourage my students to become teachers.

I am a teacher and have been for 28 years. I'm not convinced that teachers are treated wonderfully in other countries (although, like you I've heard that), but I do know that I've never seen teacher morale as low in the US as it is now. Ironically, a lot of that is due to the misguided and uninformed meddling of…

Well, here's one consideration. Even though more than 15,00o high schools offer some type of AP course, less than 2,300 U.S. high schools offer AP Computer Science. Part of the problem is that anyone who can teach the course is much more likely to take their skills far away from a modern high school and instead go…

One part of the problem is that there are too few courses being offered because anyone who could teach AP Computer Science would make a bunch more money doing almost anything other than teaching.

John Paul disliked liberation theology because he couldn't see past the idea that Communism was intrinsically evil. I don't necessarily agree with him, but I also didn't grow up and into adulthood under Soviet control. As Leonardo Boff once indicated, JPII couldn't see that capitalism had produced one way of life in…

Okay, but Pope Francis just encouraged the Bishop of Malta to preach against marriage for gays and to deliver a homily against adoption of children by gay couples. It's like politics — when the press corps loves you they ignore that kind of stuff.

Are you talking about the part of the Mass that's read on Good Friday? Yeah, he didn't have to do that. But for Benedict the fact that Tridentine Mass was conservative trumped anything else. I honestly doubt he even thought about Jewish people. John Paul II probably thought more about this issue than Benedict…

Very true. Although, I think that the praise Francis gets for fairly innocuous activities actually brings up a lot of class issues. Taking the bus, carrying your own luggage, and living in a smaller apartment are not exactly hallmarks of "roughing it." In a lot of the world those actions are just what working-class…

I didn't like Benedict, but to call him a Nazi is not really fair. He was forced to join the Hitler Youth right after his 14th birthday. It's not like he had a great big choice in the matter.

Meh. Benedict had very little personality (or background) to endear him to the Western press corps. Other than that, I don't know that he actually said anything that was substantially different than what Francis has said.

People seemed so eager to give this guy positive PR. I never quite understood it. He's may have a better personality, but he's just not that different when it comes to doctrine.

Look, I hate to break this to you, but anyone who really knows anything about the Catholic Church — as opposed to journalists and bloggers who just cover it when it's a good story — always knew that Francis wasn't as liberal as lots of people thought he was.

Yes, exactly. In fact, downstairs they even talked about sending her a card to congratulate her for something (I forgot what.) She has made a lateral transfer in the scriptwriter's mind. Julian Fellowes is so busy trying to prove that being a Catholic hasn't gotten in the way of his being an upper crust Englishman…

Exactly. And why, exactly, is Edna "bad?" Because she thinks that she's good enough for someone who is not also a domestic servant or a villager? Honestly, the way her character is drawn the only awful thing she has really done (up to this point) is to dream above her allotted station in life. Anyone who thinks…