Posted 10:35 AM by Susan Darst Williams

TGIF: FUN ED NEWS TO WRAP UP THE WEEK

Did you notice that the Nebraska student who got the perfect 1,600 on the SAT attends Omaha’s Creighton Prep . . . a private school? Congratulations to Colin McMahon and for his parents for putting him in position to maximize his education and name his own ticket for college. Last year, not a single Nebraskan made that top score, although five Iowans were among the 939 students nationwide who met the mark.

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Cases of Hepatitis B have plunged by 90 percent among children and teens in the past decade, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since 1999, all children have had to be vaccinated, but now the incidence has fallen to .034 per 100,000 of the total population. Obviously, the rate is far smaller among children. You get it through exposure to infected blood or body fluids, having sex and sharing needles -- not big risks in the kindergarten crowd, one would think. Since the risk is so small, and since there are huge, valid concerns about overvaccinating our children and exposing them to all kinds of unintended consequences, including autism, it’s hoped that the Hepatitis B shots now will be made optional again, as they should’ve been in the first place.

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Footnote to Thursday’s story about ‘’Farewell to Manzanar,’’ an anti-American textbook commonly taught in schools today that greatly exaggerates and distorts the relocation and internment of 112,000 ethnic Japanese on the West Coast after Pearl Harbor: There’s a new kind of relocation project going on right now that officials of the National Education Association should look in to. See www.HelpThemLeave.com, a nonprofit, tax-deductible organization set up to move people who can’t stand four more years of President Bush, especially because they disapprove of the war on terrorism. The NEA was brutal against the Prez this past election and ought to have their feet held to the fire for it. John McCaslin of The Washington Times reports that, in return for a permanent renunciation of American citizenship, the group will fly you, free of charge, in a chartered jet, to your choice of a country that fits your political leanings better:

Leftists: France, Germany, Italy or Spain
Socialists: Canada, Denmark, England, Finland, Norway or Sweden
Communists: Cuba or North Korea

Bon voyage! Maybe your replacements will know how to protest and criticize what’s going on in our country without being anti-American, disloyal and downright mean.

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Footnote to my story on the lack of perspective about American history and war on the part of many educators, who joined the NEA in campaigning against President Bush, often within school walls, from a Go Big Ed reader who’s a teacher in greater Nebraska: ‘’Fortunately, the schools in central Nebraska don’t appear to have some of the problems of the larger cities. On the issue of today’s topic, it is very interesting that as a former Marine and Gulf War Veteran, who now works in the public school system, many teachers who were and are bashing Bush’s foreign policy and the Iraq War from afar, march to a different drum once they find out that I was once there and hear my current views on the situation at hand. So much of life is a perception. It’s unfortunate that most of our perceptions are derived by the liberal media.’’

Hang in there, Mr. Teacher. You’re one of the good guys. And guess what: we’ve got ‘em outnumbered. Semper fi!