Far from providing the brain-boosting advantages promised by specialized programs aimed at the youngest viewers, TV time for children under two does more harm than good, according to a newly published review of international research.

"Infant TV viewing is associated with delayed language, with shortened attention spans and with delayed cognitive development," says Dimitri Christakis, a pediatrician and professor at the University of Washington. "The scientific evidence of benefit is just not there and the best available evidence suggests harm."

It's a message that needs to get out to the 29% of parents who said in a U.S. study that they screen these programs for their tots because they believe they're educational, he says. Read more at Canada.com.

One morning two months ago, Shamsia Husseini and her sister were walking through the muddy streets to the local girls school in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, when a man pulled alongside them on a motorcycle and posed what seemed like an ordinary question. “Are you going to school?”

Then the man pulled Shamsia’s burqa from her head and sprayed her face with burning acid. Scars, jagged and discolored, now spread across Shamsia’s eyelids and most of her left cheek. These days, her vision goes blurry, making it hard for her to read.

But if the acid attack against Shamsia and 14 others—students and teachers—was meant to terrorize the girls into staying home, it appears to have completely failed. Today, nearly all of the wounded girls are back at the Mirwais School for Girls, including even Shamsia, whose face was so badly burned that she had to be sent abroad for treatment. Perhaps even more remarkable, nearly every other female student in this deeply conservative community has returned as well—about 1,300 in all. Read more in The New York Times online.

There's good news about reading, says the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)in a report the agency released January 12, 2009. For the first time since the NEA began surveying American reading habits in 1982—and less than five years after it issued its famously gloomy "Reading at Risk" report—the percentage of American adults who report reading "novels, short stories, poems or plays" has risen instead of declining: from 46.7% in 2002 to 50.2% in 2008.

In the preface to "Reading on the Rise: A New Chapter in American Literacy," outgoing NEA Chairman Dana Gioia called it a "turning point in recent American cultural history" and emphasized that "the most significant growth has been among young adults," the group previously showing the biggest reading declines.

Yet the survey contains bad news as well. The percentage of American adults who report reading any book not required for work or school during the previous year is still declining. It fell from 56.6% in 2002 to 54.3% in 2008.

Arne Duncan, President-elect Barack Obama's choice for U.S. Secretary of Education, drew bipartisan praise during his confirmation hearing before the Senate education committee on January 13, according to a report by Alyson Klein published in Education Week online.

"There is no question that schools across America can benefit from the same kind of fresh thinking that you have brought to Chicago public schools," said Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), who presided over the hearing. Duncan also drew praise from Republican Senator Lamar Alexander (TN) and others.

For further information, visit Education Week online.

In 2001, in the middle of the day in the middle of the year, Tania Giordani walked off her job as a 7th-8th grade science teacher with the Chicago Public Schools. Giordani, who had a master's degree from Loyola University, had been with the Chicago schools for more than two years and had planned on being a teacher for life. She originally taught at a middle-class white school on the north side where test scores were exemplary and resources were plentiful—so plentiful that she had science textbooks not yet officially on the market.

At the same time, she felt unfulfilled, isolated, and sidetracked from her vision of working in a diverse, urban setting. She asked to be transferred. Giordani was unprepared for the conditions at her new school, however. The problems were not with the African American, low-income neighborhood—Giordani herself was African American and had grown up on the city's south side, where the school was located.

But she hadn't expected that the students and teachers at the school would have so few resources and so little support from district administrators. What's more, she found she had little hope that district policy makers would rid themselves of the racist assumptions she believes were at the heart of the school's lack of resources and cavalier attitude toward student learning. Read more in Rethinking Schools online.

 Barack Obama's choice for education secretary, Arne Duncan, faces questions about his commitment to school reform at a Senate confirmation hearing. Duncan, the Chicago public schools chief, was to appear Tuesday, January 13, 2009, before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Obama has pledged to overhaul President Bush's No Child Left Behind law, although he has been vague about how far he would go. School reform advocates who support the law view Duncan and other big-city school chiefs as kindred spirits. The law prods schools to improve test scores each year, so that every student can read and do math on grade level by the year 2014. It was due for a rewrite in 2007, but the effort stalled. Lawmakers hope to try again within the next couple of years. Read more of this Associated Press article. Read more about Duncan's background in this Associated Press article.

Through a joint effort between the National Education Association (NEA) and kidthing®, children all across the United States have a chance to share their hopes, dreams, and ideas with incoming U.S. President Barack Obama.

To participate, kids send in their ideas in the form of letters or drawings by mail or e-mail attachments. The top submissions will be featured in kidthing's Dear Mr. President digital book, which will be unveiled in the kidthing store on President's Day, February 16, 2009. kidthing will offer this special digital book for free. A limited edition print will also be sent to the White House. Applicants must hurry: the deadline for submissions is January 20, 2009.

For more information, visit the NEA website or the kidthing website.

Chicago public schools chief Arne Duncan goes before a Senate committee on Tuesday, January 13, 2009, for a confirmation hearing. To help him set priorities, The Washington Post reporter Valerie Strauss asked folks in the education world to provide their best advice on key issues. Here is a response from Diane Ravitch, professor of education at New York University, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. On the same page is a list of others who responded, including an early education advocate, an author, a teacher, a student and more. Just click on the name and read what they have to say.

"Promise you won't be mad." That conversation opener, uttered by my mother, always has the effect of making my stomach muscles tense and the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up. I'm on instant alert since I know that whatever she is about to say is undoubtedly going to sting. "What?" I asked warily.

"I got Joe's thank-you letter in the mail," she began. Joe had written the thank-you letter with no prompting from me – which I thought was pretty good for a 17-year-old who often doesn't remember to get out of bed in the morning without a lot of loud prompting. "It's about his handwriting," she said. "It's terrible! It looks like chicken scratches!" See the outcome of this situation in this piece by Nell Musolf in The Christian Science Monitor online.

Ocford University Press is using books with computer-generated images in an attempt to get boys to enjoy reading, according to a news story reported on BBC News. The publisher's Project X books, which are designed to appeal to boys up to age nine, have been tested in 2,000 schools and can be used interactively through CD-Roms and whiteboards.

Critics, however, have called the computer-generated images "ghastly" and said that the books are a "shallow response" to the problem of getting boys to read. For further information, read the full article.

 The IRA Regie Routman Teacher Recognition Grant (under new guidelines) will honor an outstanding mainstream, elementary classroom teacher dedicated to improving the teaching and learning of reading and writing across the curriculum in real-world contexts in grades K–6 (ages 5–12). Formerly called the Regie Routman Teacher Recognition Award, the grant has a new focus and carries an increased prize of US$2,500.

All applicants for the IRA Regie Routman Teacher Recognition Grant must be Association members, and at least 60% of the school’s students must be eligible for free and reduced lunch. This grant is supported by noted educator and author Regie Routman.

Under the revised guidelines, applications must include the following components:

• Completed application form.
• A three-page (maximum) proposal outlining how you will support, improve, enhance, and accelerate teaching and learning for students. For example, funds may be used for, but are not limited to: building a classroom library, attending the IRA annual convention to increase professional knowledge, creating a home/school partnership, increasing collegial collaboration, improving reading and writing in authentic literacy contexts, or publishing student work.
• A one-page personal statement (beliefs statements and how your beliefs align with your practices, including your professional vision for this project.)
• A letter of recommendation from a principal, superintendent, and/or curriculum coordinator, in addition to a letter from a peer (a maximum of 3 letters). Each recommendation must include the participant’s leadership skills, collegial interactions, effective teaching practices, successful teaching/learning/relationships with students and an understanding of the intentions and/or support of the project detailed by the applicant.

An electronic copy of the complete application or a copy of the application packet must be submitted by March 13, 2009. For full guidelines and an application form, write to the Executive Division, Classroom Teacher Awards Subcommittee, International Reading Association, 800 Barksdale Rd., PO Box 8139, Newark, DE 19714-8139, or send an e-mail to exec@reading.org. The guidelines and application form also are available at the following page on the IRA website.

On January 8, the U.S. National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) released the National Assessment of Adult Literacy: Indirect County and State Estimates of the Percentage of Adults at the Lowest Literacy Level for 1992 and 2003, which provides estimates for all states and counties in the United States on the percentage of adults who lack basic prose literacy skills. The study provides data for 2003 and 1992. This new data is currently the only available snapshot of adult literacy rates for individual states and counties.

To produce this study, NCES gathered data from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL), a nationally representative sample of more than 19,000 Americans age 16 and older, and the 2000 Census, which provided "predictor variables" such as education and income.

The report is accompanied by an interactive Web tool, which shows the percentage of adults lacking Basic Prose Literacy Skills for all states and counties. In addition to allowing users to view adult literacy percentages for any given state, the Web tool also allows for comparisons to be made between two states, two counties in the same state, two counties in different states, across years for a state, and across years for a county.

For further information, access the report or the interactive Web tool.