Note: I've proposed that a portion of Monday's extra letters space be confiscated in order to offer some more room for my review of what's happening in the blogosphere. Below is the batch that would have appeared Monday if I had been given the space.

Blogs considered for this week.

The Sunday Blog Watch article in Forum.

Raking season
fromthearchives.blogspot.com

It is raking season here in Sacramento. The elms and sycamores that hold hands over our streets start rustling around in October; by November they’ve loosened up enough to shed those itchy leaves. Leaves cover lawns and sidewalks deep enough to form drifts. If you rake in the morning, when you come home from work your lawn will be entirely covered again. My long time readers already know that I cap off a year of not mowing my lawn by not raking my leaves, but I do try to keep the sidewalks clear.

The people who do rake, however, get the benefit of one of my favorite things about Sacramento. Sacramento has no greenwaste containers; instead you can put any amount of greenwaste out in piles on the street. ... This time of year, you’ll see piles four feet deep and ten feet long of leaves. On your trash pick-up day, two guys come along, one driving a truck to hold the green waste and the other driving The Claw, which scoops the pile up and puts it in the truck. ... If you happen to be riding your bike on Freeport Boulevard at six in the morning, you’ll see a line of Claws leaving the yard, orange lights shining in the fog. Love ‘em. ...

My love for Sacramento’s pile pick-up puts me in conflict with Sacramento’s bicycling advocacy community. ... And, truth told, now that I’m biking through dark, wet streets with my hands in my pockets to keep them warm, I am becoming less fond of large, barely visible obstacles. Much as I hate to disagree with the bike crew, I’ll hold out for a little longer before joining the anti-pile crowd. I just love the Claws and piles of leaves bigger than cars that much.

Middle school fashion crimes
buckhornroad.blogspot.com

This week, I returned to work after a wonderful 17 days off. Now that I am back in action, I am already noticing funny things about the young students I teach. I am always shaking my head at the fashions I see at my school. Here are some trends I have noticed so far.

First, the cold weather has brought out the coats. What I find amusing are the arctic-like parkas that the black female students tend to wear. ... Sacramento may get cold on occasion, but never cold enough to justify a fur-lined hood for goodness' sake. ...

Then on the flip side, I see kids of both sexes and all races coming to school on these 30 and 40 degree mornings wearing shorts and a t-shirt. ... Sacramento might get hot, but not in November. I remember this phenomenon from my childhood as well. Some kids think they will be considered wimps and will be presumably made fun of if they wear warm clothes in cold weather or use an umbrella when it is raining. Meanwhile, their worst fear is realized as I look at them thinking to myself how ridiculous they are to be wearing beachwear as they leave footprints in the frost.

Next, 1976 is back folks, and it is my white male students who are committing this travesty. ... I detest the fashions of the 1970s in every way I can think of; look at the cover of Lynyrd Skynrd's 1977 album Street Survivors and you will see what I mean. It kills me to see these 8th grade boys ... with their unkempt, limp, greasy-looking hair falling all over their face and ears, especially since I taught many of them as 6th graders when they had these cute boy cuts that actually looked decent. Like the old quote goes, the only thing worse than having no taste is having no shame.

Then there are the annual favorites, such as the saggy jeans, hooded sweatshirt with hood on... all the time, and the $200 pair of Jordans surrounding the feet of the chronically unprepared student yet tells me he can't afford to buy pencils and eats a taxpayer-subsidized lunch at the cafeteria every day... Sigh. ...

Let's give ourselves an F
www.sacramentoexecutive.com

For every 100 9th graders, only 18 will enter college and finish within 6 years. That leaves 82 underachieving and under contributing to this country. And for those 18 who do finish, many of them will be faced with a mountain of student debt to repay. This information comes from a new report by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Major reasons for our failing grade:
Spiraling tuition
Poor college preparation
Lack of help to keep students moving toward a degree

The average cost of tuition has risen 35% over 5 years compared to a 13.8% increase in inflation.

Loan debt by student borrowers at public colleges more than doubled in the past 10 years to $17,250, according to inflation-adjusted figures from the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

The federal government Pell Grant program is a joke. If the program was keeping up with the rise in tuition, the average Pell Grant would be around $10,000, rather than $4,000. This lack requires students to get the additional assistance in the form of loans.

And all of this gap in finances is making it much more difficult for low-income students to complete a degree. Only half of students from households making $25,000 or less who started at a 4 year college in 1996 graduated in 5 years, compared to three quarters of students from households with incomes of $70,000 or more. And getting a job made matters worse. During this same period, 65 percent of those who did not work graduated, compared to 31 percent who worked full time.

Not educating our kids is a sin in my book, but it's also very short sighted. According to the Institute for Higher Education Policy in Washington, higher education boosts tax revenues, cuts dependence on welfare, and boosts community service among other social benefits.

The digital divide
mayagirl.blogspot.com

An issue that will always be important to me because I experienced it firsthand, and because it has the potential to create a new form of apartheid (if it hasn't already) is the digital divide. As developed societies become increasingly more technologically based, even for the most basic of tasks, those in the developing world run the risk of being even more left behind. ...

Which is why I love the one laptop per child initiative. It is a masterpiece, as far as I'm concerned. Granted, it's $150 instead of the initially projected $100 price tag, which is likely insurmountable for many poor households. However, it is created from simpler parts than its first-world counterparts. It can be recharged with manual power (e.g. foot pedal, crank, etc.), so issues of electricity access are minimized. It comes with wi-fi capability, which is seen as a way for developing countries to bypass the need to lay cable for traditional telecommunications systems and to include rural areas in the process. It's designed in such a way that it could be produced in-country, thus creating economies of scale for local entities. ... Even if local organizations don't produce the laptops, the educational benefits of creating access to the world for these kids will be transformative.