Recently in Education Category

The Hound believes the statute of limitations is past or these tales wouldn't be told. Like the Zion-Benton High students suspended for pulling a senior prank, The Hound took part in several.

Let's see, there was the firecracker incident the night of senior prom and the liberation of a piglet in the halls of a certain central Lake County high school. Boy, do little pigs have a lot of pig doo-doo in them.

The Hound isn't admitting anything, but there was that early ignition of a certain homecoming bonfire. "Long live cool", as a certain motorcyclist screamed wild to be wreckage, as a Molotov cocktail was flung on a pile of logs, old furniture and aging fence posts.

What those Zee-Bees did the other day seem tame in comparison to what The Hound undertook on several covert missions. Let's see, these guys spent a few bucks on banana outfits and a gorilla suit and got chased around the Zee-Bee campus. Hmm, hasn't poly sci teacher Bruce Hansen brought scarier people to the school?

Looks like these merry pranksters have been suspended for a few days.

Guess that will be on their permanent record. Guys, this will follow you the rest of your lives. And, they will still talk about you at the 10th class reunion in 2018.

Perhaps they were aping that favorite program of Gen Xers', "The Banana Splits". Then again, maybe not.

But, remember what The Boss, aka, Bruce Springsteen, said:

"We busted out of class, had to get away from those fools

"We learned more from a three-minute record than we ever learned in school."

Hey guys, no retreat, no surrender. Especially in this era of No Child Left Behind and six-figure teacher and adminstrators' salaries.

The Hound took the young pups on a tour of Illinois institutions of higher learning. We all agreed it was a long way to look at cornfields.

The drive from Lake County to Urbana-Champaign, where the University of Illinois is located is one of the world's worst drives, bar none. Once south of Kankakee, we in the Land of Lincoln understand why Wisconsinites call us flatlanders. Is it flat, or what?

For miles one sees farm fields, and with in this economy that probably means corn for ethanol. The Hound has only seen one thing flatter than that drive down Interstate 57. That would be a pool table and at least there was some green on it. No wonder Jon Scheyer opted for Duke over the Illini.

After a look at the U of I campus, our next stop was Carbondale and Southern Illinois University. Do you know they have oil wells in southern Illinois? The Hound has learned that Illinois is the nation's sixth largest producer of oil. Let's drop some cricket pumps in Lake County and see what type of Texas tea we come up with.

From there the convoy headed to Western Illlinois University. Talk about your land that time forgot. McDonough County? Argyle Lake? Outside of pig farms, what exactly is western Illinois good for. It, too, is flat.

What did the pups learn from this sojourn to scope out their future universities? Either go out of state or head to Northern Illinois University. DeKalb certainly is a shorter distance to look at cornfields.

After a quick

The Hound's mom always had this saying that if Little Johnny jumped off the bridge would you? Well, The Hound has jumped off a number of bridges, but mom was trying to make the point of don't be a follower, be a leader. Waukegan school officials think they're leaders. They're not.

Perhaps The Hound's ACT scores were the reason he ended up at state obedience school, not that he didn't get good grooming techniques there. Parents today, though, don't want to take that chance and are grooming their pups for the all-important college entrance exams at the ripe old age of 5.

Perhaps The Hound is off his feed, but a congresswoman teaching a bunch of freshmen and sophomores sure seems like a waste of time. Isn't that what consumer education teachers are for?

In these shaky economic times, a 6 percent pay hike, retroactive, for this year and 4 percent increases the next two years are pretty good salary bumps, especially when most worker bees are getting 2 to 3 percent --- if they're lucky --- this year and next.

The state's annual school report cards are out. You can check out the elementary school results or the high school ratings and guess what? The poor schools have the lowest rankings and the rich schools have the highest rankings. Stop the presses!

There must be something in the water that causes North Chicago School District 187 superintendents to bolt for the door after a stint at the school's helm. The Hound has tasted North Chicago water and hasn't found it lacking in the usual liquid ways. So it must be something else.

Boy, are we red-faced. The annual list of the nation's top party schools comes out and the University of Illinois ranks Number 16.