Ah, the first day of school. It always reminds us of this Staples ad.

But for those of you who aren’t enthused about the return of classes, we have some good news. It’s not your fault school is boring! From the Washington Post’s Valerie Strauss (emphasis ours):

[T]he problems may lie beyond your child. According to cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham, it could be the school that is boring the heck out of your child.

A professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, Willingham studies how people think and learn by looking at the biological and cognitive basis of learning. His conclusions about what this all means for your child sitting in class for eight hours a day may cause you to rethink how your child is being educated.

The conclusion we’ve come to after reading articles about Facebook in the New York Times and Washington Post this weekend is that people are leaving the social networking service because they don’t know what to put under their religious views. In all seriousness, the religious views question is one a lot of people do struggle with. From William Wan’s Post story:

For the longest time, the question just sat there on his screen. Cursor blinking. Waiting quietly, like a patient priest in a confessor’s box. Religious Views: _____.

Creating a Facebook profile for the first time, Eric Heim hadn’t expected something so serious. Hunched over his laptop, he had whipped through the social network Web site’s questionnaire about his interests, favorite movies and relationship status, typing witty replies wherever possible. But when he reached the little blank box asking for his core beliefs, it stopped him short.

“It’s Facebook. The whole point is to keep it light and playful, you know?” said Heim, 27, a college student from Dumfries. “But a question like that kind of makes you think.”

Such public proclamations of beliefs used to require a baptism in water, or a circumcision, or learning the five pillars of Islam. Now Facebook users announce their spiritual identity with the stroke of a few keys. And what they are typing into the open-ended box offers a revealing peek into modern faith and what happens to that faith as it migrates online.

Inside Higher Ed, meanwhile, discovered a sharp increase in Pell Grant spending in an Obama White House document:

But buried within the Office of Management and Budget’s “mid-session review” (see Page 21) is a startling figure that arguably has both good news and bad news for President Obama’s higher education strategy.

The budget document shows that federal spending on the Pell Grant Program will be $27 billion higher over the next decade than the administration estimated as recently as February. At that time, the cost of making Pell Grants an entitlement and having it increase automatically each year was estimated at $117 billion over 10 years.

The good news (such as it is) for President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan is that the budget office attributes the shortfall to sharp increases in the number of students using federal aid to enroll in college this fall — a typical result when the economy nosedives, but also arguably a sign that Americans are responding to the president’s call for every American to have at least a year of higher education…

The enrollment numbers may hearten administration officials. But the new budget figures are probably prompting more consternation than celebration at the Education Department and among Congressional Democrats, because they would appear to threaten, or at least complicate, President Obama’s plan to end lending through the guaranteed student loan program and use the savings to increase Pell Grant spending and address a slew of other education priorities. That’s because the estimate would seem to increase the cost of the president’s Pell Grant plan sharply over 10 years.

On the state level, it turns out the Board of Public Works, which has been slashing the university’s (and the state government as a whole’s) budget pretty frequently the last two years, is something of a rarity. From Aaron C. Davis’ Post article:

The weighty decisions will be made by Maryland’s Board of Public Works, a generically named three-person panel that toils mostly in obscurity, approving a seemingly endless number of state contracts during good times, but whose power is felt intensely by millions of residents when difficult decisions need to be made.

The board — made up of O’Malley and two fellow Democrats whom many Marylanders might be hard-pressed to name, Comptroller Peter Franchot and Treasurer Nancy K. Kopp — is a one-of-a-kind setup, according to political analysts and historians. In most places, state legislators must approve budget cuts, and a handful of governors have the power to strike funding line by line. But the board is the only state entity with constitutional authority to cut as much as 25 percent of funding for almost any state program or agency, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Last but not least, the Post says increased sales of whitey tighties may be a sign the recession is over. Ylan Q. Mui reports:

Here’s the theory, briefly: Sales of men’s underwear typically are stable because they rank as a necessity. But during times of severe financial strain, men will try to stretch the time between buying new pairs, causing underwear sales to dip.

“It’s a prolonged purchase,” said Marshal Cohen, senior analyst with the consumer research firm NPD Group. “It’s like trying to drive your car an extra 10,000 miles.”

The growth in sales of men’s underwear began to slow last year as the recession took hold, according to Mintel, another research firm. This year, Mintel expects sales to fall 2.3 percent, the first drop since the company started collecting data in 2003.

But the men’s underwear index — or, conveniently, MUI — may also have a silver lining. Mintel predicts that next year, men’s underwear sales will fall by 0.5 percent, and as with many economic indicators, a slowing of a decline can be welcomed as a step in the right direction. Retailers are reporting encouraging signs in the men’s underwear department. Sears spokeswoman Amy Dimond said stores are beginning to see more sales. At Target, spokeswoman Jana O’Leary said sales of men’s underwear have been stronger over the past two months and multi-pair packs are moving.

Quick Hits

• State lawmakers are being asked to give up pay, the Post says.
• The Baltimore Sun postulates that Virgin Fest was JUST AS AWESOME despite being smaller this year.
• Budget cuts are forcing the State Department of Agriculture to close an animal research lab in College Park, WBAL reports.
• The faculty at Montgomery College, which feeds a lot of students to the university, voted ‘No confidence’ in their president. (7th item down.)

What’s Happening Today?

• It’s the first day of classes.
• A university system workgroup on adjuncts and graduate assistants holds a public hearing at the USM office in Adelphi at 1 p.m.
• Beyond the Classroom screens “The Lost Boys of Sudan” at 7 p.m. in South Campus Commons Building 1.
  

Tags: Morning Roundup

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