Here’s your Daily Digest for Monday, March 19, 2012
A man and three children were killed Monday in front of a Jewish school in Toulouse, France by a drive-by gunman on a motorcycle.
According to the Christian Science Monitor, the shooting is the third motorcycle killing in the region in a week. Authorities have not yet determined whether Monday’s shooting is related to the two attacks on French paratroopers earlier last week that left three dead and another severely injured.
“A 30-year-old man and his 3-year-old and 6-year-old sons were killed in Monday's attack, just before classes started at the Ozar Hatorah school, a junior high and high school in a quiet residential neighborhood,” the Christian Science Monitor reported.
Another child was also killed and a 17-year-old was seriously injured.
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The U.S. high school graduation rate has improved modestly since 2001, the Associated Press reported.
Between 2001 and 2009, the high school graduation rate increased by 3.5 percentage points due largely to gains in 12 states including New York and Tennessee — states that have seen double-digit increases since 2002.
The research was announced Monday during a Grad Summit held by the children’s education advocacy group America's Promise Alliance in Washington.
The organization’s goal is to reach a 90 percent graduation rate by 2020. The graduation rate was 75 percent in 2009 — about 1 in 4 students fails to get a diploma in four years.
Only Wisconsin has reached the 90 percent goal.
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Did you keep it classy during Spring Break this year? The New York Times reports that Spring Break trips have become more and more tame as students fear their drunken antics will go viral on YouTube or end up on Facebook.
Today’s spring breakers are saying no to wet t-shirt contests and concealing alcohol in their pictures in order to protect their online image.
“They are very prudish,” Margaret Donnelly, a bartender in Key West, Fla., told the NYT. “They are so afraid everyone is going to take their picture and put it online. Ten years ago people were doing filthy, filthy things, but it wasn’t posted on Facebook.”