That's Manners

Emily had her first "Puppy Manners" class today. What was really fun was the periods of socializing play when the puppies (who ranged in size from teency to big-puppy-size) got to race around with each other. Emily, arguably the largest pup in the class, was well behaved but frolicked madly; some of the smallest dogs kept racing up to her and insisting on wrestling, so we kept up with her to make sure we could pull her off if she got, um, a little Big for the tiny ones. But she didn't. She had a splendid time. I almost expected her to run up to me the way YG used to do (and still does sometimes) as a kid, beseeching me to get the other kids' phone numbers so we could arrange a playdate.

News

The Education Department announced on Friday afternoon (just in time to have the news buried in the Saturday papers) that overall, kids attending public schools do as well or better than comparable kids at private schools. Note: as well or better than. The Times, of course, had a headline that said "Public Schools Close to Private in U.S. Study." Which implies that they're scraping along almost as well, rather than "as well as better than."

The administration has been making public schools the Great Satan, in order to advance voucher systems; the Education department notes that there is no expectation that these findings will change the administrations policies. Duh. It is useful to note that religiously affiliated private schools--specifically conservative Christian schools--did the worst; Lutheran schools did the best of the religious private schools.