This story aired on CNN today. A charter school in Baltimore is having incredible success. Thanks, in part, to its dedicated teachers. The teachers at the KIPP Ujima School have even refused pay increases and voluntarily work every other Saturday to help their students be the best they can me.

But now the teachers union in Baltimore is forcing them to take more pay and stop working on the weekends. As a result, the school is being forced to fire 5 teachers and end field trips.

St. Louis Public Schools Superintendent Diana Bouriaw is one of 17 applicants to be the next head of the Cincinnati Public Schools, according to a Cincinnati newspaper.

Bourisaw, who has led SLPS since July 2006, decided not to re-apply for her job after the Special Administrative Board unexpectedly announced they were searching for a new superintendent.

Considering the relatively small group of educators with experience leading urban districts, Bourisaw may have an advantage on her competition for the Cincinnati job. In fact, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer, several school board members there have specifically said experience in a large, urban setting is a high priority for the roughly 34,000-student district. Bourisaw is just one of seven applicants from school systems with more than 20,000 students. Enrollment in SLPS was 32,135 last year.

[UPDATE: Read our later story "Oxford Apologizes to Cunningham" to get even more info about what happened.]

Did State Rep. Jane Cunningham (R-Chesterfield) really turn tail on two teens who came to Jefferson City to support anti-bullying legislation?

The office of Jeanette Mott Oxford (D-St. Louis) put out a press release Thursday claiming Cunningham refused to meet with students Desiree Bain and Austyn Langston of Jackson County because “she found their appearance very difficult to look at.”

Oxford, who did meet with the students, said they had multiple facial piercings and one had “vividly colored hair.”

“Other than that they looked like regular teenagers to me,” Oxford said.

The incident happened March 26. Langston and Bain were at the State Capitol in support of the Missouri Safe Schools legislation (House Bill 1751). The bill contains training provisions for teachers and school administrators to better recognize and stop school bullying. The bill also addresses harassment of homosexual and transgender students.

The bill is presently being held up by Rep. Cunningham who is the Elementary and Secondary Education Committee chairperson.

PubDef.net has tried to contact Cunningham’s office for her side in this incident, but so far all attempts have been unsuccessful.

According to a press release for Oxford’s office, after refusing to meet with Langston and Bain, Rep. Cunningham told another group of students that:

(L)ooking at these two young women was making her ill and that she didn’t understand why they hated themselves.

Oxford would later meet with those same students and recalled how upset they were.

We all have different polices about who can see us in our offices, but anytime students make it to the capitol I try to talk to students … I try to treat them with hospitality whether they are dressed ‘properly’ or not.

The students involved went to the office of Sara Lampe (D-Springfield). She wasn’t in so her assistant got me. The kids were quite upset and I wanted them to see an elected official who’s going to receive them warmly.

Oxford said Cunningham may tell the story one way, but others find it another. She thinks Cunningham should set aside her prejudices and work with her fellow representatives to fight bullying.

I am not in anyway impugning some kind of lack of compassion or ill motivation on Rep. Cunningham’s part. She and lots of other will meaning people don’t understand the dynamics of hateful speech.

The state passed a law saying ‘no bullying.’ That’s not good enough. Unless there’s some training for teachers and principals on when and how to spot bullying, schools are not doing a good job with it. I sat down with a student who’s since dropped out of school because of the bullying she was receiving.

Washington University has named a new provost … and he’s the same as the last provost.

Executive Vice Chancellor Edward S. Macias, the dean of Arts & Sciences, was named to the position, to begin Jan. 1, 2009. He was the last person to serve as provost at Wash U almost 13 years ago.

Wash U. Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton made the announcement last Friday.

According to a press release by the university, Macias was the last person to hold the position of provost at Wash U., from 1988 to 1995. Since then he has kept maintained the duties of a chief academic officer.

Macias will step down as dean on June 30 and take on his new position after a six-month sabbatical.

University officials said a interim dean of the faculty of Arts & Sciences will be named soon, and the University will launch a national search for a new dean.

The provost, along with the chancellor and the academic deans, are responsible for the oversight of the educational and scholarly programs at the University. The release states that “the provost is the chief academic officer of the University, responsible for working with the deans to enhance the quality and impact of the University’s academic mission. The provost, working with the executive vice chancellor for administration and the chief financial officer, also has responsibility for coordinating the budgeting and capital planning of the University.”