New Things

According to Education Week, the U.S. Department of Education has started spelling out its spending priorities; letting school districts know how they should be planning to allocate their shares of the federal stimulus package. The funding involved is something close to $100 billion for K-12 education over two years.

Arne Duncan's list of favorite things includes improved data collection processes; using teachers as coaches and mentors; creating new teacher evaluation systems based on student progress; and developing online individualized education plans for students.


Also: The Three Sisters - Anton Chekhov. Translated by Carol Rocamora

TUSENBACH: What about it? Those who live after us, they'll fly around in hot air balloons, the style of their clothing will change, perhaps they'll even discover a sixth sense and develop it, but life will remain just as it is, difficult, full of joys and mysteries. And even after a thousand years, people will sigh and say: "Ach, life is hard!" --just as they do today, even then they will fear death and will not want to die.

VERSHININ: (After a moment's thought. How can you say that? It seems to me that everything on earth must change, little by little, indeed, it is changing even now, right before our very eyes. After two hundred -- three hundred years, after a thousand years, even, -- it's not the length of time that matters -- a new life will finally dawn, a life of happiness. And we shall not take part in that life, of course, but we are living for it now, we are working for it now, yes, even suffering for it, we are creating it --- and this, and this alone, is our reason for being, indeed, this is our happiness.

MASHA laughs softly.

TUSENBACH: What is it?

MASHA: I don't know. I've been laughing like this since this morning.