Direct Education Scheduler

A fractured Republican majority on the Wake County Board of Education took 56 rounds of voting to elect John Tedesco vice chairman tonight a standoff that illustrated the tension among the people governing the states largest school district.

The dozens of rounds of paper-ballot voting came during the boards annual organizational meeting, after the board voted along party lines to re-elect Chairman Ron Margiotta through the end of his term in December.

Selection of a vice chairman is usually a formality when one party holds a majority. But what unfolded was an unusual stalemate: Democrat Keith Sutton had four votes, Tedesco had three and Goldman had one. The tally showed GOP dissatisfaction with Goldman, who began her term firmly aligned with Margiotta and three other Republicans who were elected along with her in fall 2009.

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Author and journalist Richard Louv speaks at the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum about his new book, “The Nature Principle.” Louv started a movement to help children reconnect with nature and coined the term “nature deficit-disorder” in his best-selling book, “Last Child in the Woods.”

Minneapolis The University of Minnesota board of regents has passed a budget that will raise tuition for most students by 5 percent, freeze employee wages, and cut millions from the school’s academic programs.

U officials are assuming they’ll get $71 million less in state funding next year, even though there’s no agreement on higher education funding because of the budget impasse at the state Capitol.

U of M president Robert Bruininks, who steps down June 30 after nine years on the job, said he isn’t happy with the budget.

“This, in my judgment, is one of my disappointing acts,” Bruininks said. “I have the unenviable position of presenting what I consider a dismal budget.”

Two regents voted against the budget proposal. Steve Sviggum and Laura Brod , both former Republican lawmakers, felt the budget didn’t go far enough in cutting costs at the U.

A judge has overturned a 6-year-old’s expulsion from a Philadelphia charter school for touching his teacher’s thighs after she complained that her legs hurt.

The 6-year-old, who had three earlier suspensions, was merely trying to comfort his teacher, the judge concluded.

“I want to make them feel better,” the boy told his teacher, according to a May 23 ruling by Common Pleas Judge Paul P. Panepinto, first reported on by The Legal Intelligencer.

The case, involving the First Philadelphia Charter School for Literacy, hints at a larger question that looms as the number of charter schools explodes across the country.

The Philadelphia-based Education Law Center argued that charter schools–federally-funded but privately run schools–sometimes seek more leeway in disciplining students using the argument they can always return to a traditional public school.

“This ‘double-standard’ view is legally flawed,” staff attorney Paul Lapp wrote in a brief filed on behalf of the boy’s family.

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