No surprise here, schools that emphasize technology earned high marks again — just like last year.

Schools that made the cut include:

1. School for the Talented and Gifted (Dallas, TX)
2. Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (Alexandria, VA)
3. School of Science and Engineering Magnet (Dallas, TX)
4. University High School (Tucson, AZ)
5. International Academy (Bloomfield Hills, MI)
6. BASIS Tucson (Tucson, AZ)
7. Oxford Academy (Cypress, CA)
8. Pacific Collegiate School (Santa Cruz, CA)
9. International School (Bellevue, WA)
10. High Technology High School (Lincroft, NJ)

View the full list here.

Any other schools that deserve to be on the list? Add them in the comments box below — and don’t forget to to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

The nation’s largest school district has ruled on teacher-student interaction via social media …

… and the bottom line for teachers is: Don’t do it.

New York City’s Department of Education notified public school teachers they can no longer interact with students on personal Facebook, Twitter and other social-media web pages.

Teachers can however post and chat with students on their school’s or class’s official  sites that are sanctioned by the city.

The new rules come on the heels of numerous underage sex allegations against teachers. Yet the rules don’t address text messaging and phone conversations between teachers and students.

This new rule could stick

Could the teachers’ union and parents put up a fight in court? Sure. After all, some educators and students say social-media improves learning and should be encouraged, not symied.

But winning a legal challenge in court may difficult.

For example: New York City has a zero-tolerance policy on cell phones in schools. There were several lawsuits protesting the policy on safety and free-speech grounds.

Result: New York’s appellate courts dismissed all of them, upholding the cell-phone ban.

Will New York’s new social-media restrictions help? Let us know your opinion below.

Click here to read the free whitepaper!   

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)  filed the suit after its “Don’t Filter Me!” campaign recruited students to “test” schools’ web filters.

The campaign revealed Camdenton’s web filters blocked access to websites that offered supportive, nonsexual information regarding lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues.

The court found the district’s “web filter was a big problem.”

Under the settlement terms, the district has agreed to:

• stop blocking the sites
• submit to monitoring for 18 months, and
• pay $125,000 in legal fees.

Click here to download free guide!   

Worse than even we thought, and we’ve been sounding the alarm for a while now.

A new study from Rutgers University shows only 50% of students who graduated between 2006 and 2011 have a full-time job.

On top of that grim news, only 4 in 10 are finding jobs that require the costly degrees they just earned.

As you might imagine, graduates aren’t enthusiastic about their prospects either. Thirty-two percent agree that “Hard work and determination are no guarantee of success for most people.”

That may be true in some cases. What’s indisputable is that many college degrees aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on or worth thousands of dollars in student loan debt.

Here are the top 10 college majors with the lowest unemployment rates – no surprise, most of them are tough majors too. And here’s another field where job growth will be booming over the next decade.

Fact: Some students are reluctant to raise their hands to ask a question in front of the class — regardless of how completely lost they feel.

Understoodit.com has a solution for that timeless problem.

After registering for a free account, teachers can get feedback in real time.

The site allows students to anonymously click a “confusedometer” or an “understandometer” during lessons.

Teachers get instant feedback on their computers about whether the class is ready to move on to the next lesson — or perhaps delve a little deeper to clarify a point.

The app works through browsers on iPhones, laptops and tablets.

Check it out — and let us know what you think in the comments box below.

And don’t forget to to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed suit on behalf of three Indiana students who were suspended for comments posted on Facebook.

According to reports, the eighth-grade girls posted comments that:

• discussed killing classmates
• suggested putting someone in a bathtub of acid and lighting it on fire
• debated whether it was better to kill with a knife or a gun, and
• brainstormed ways to hide the evidence.

A concerned parent of one of the targeted students — who was afraid to go to school — printed a copy of the conversation thread and took it to the school principal.

The three girls were suspended for violating bullying, harassment and intimidation rules, as listed in the student handbook.

After the suspension, ACLU got involved and filed suit against Griffith Public Schools. The suit accuses school officials of violating the girls’ speech rights.

On the surface, ACLU’s stance that the girls were “just joking” sounds pretty commonplace.

Insisting the girls’ online conversations were “clearly meant to be humorous,” the ACLU offered proof, pointing to the girls’ use of emoticons (such as smiley faces) and common playful texting acronyms (including LOL, ROFL and LMFAO).

ACLU attorney Gavin M. Rose noted, “Any reasonable person could see the conversation was purely in jest and could not be interpreted seriously.”

Co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center Justin Patchin disagreed. “It doesn’t matter if they did use those emoticons … [or] if the intent was to joke around. If we look at the content, would we be threatened by it?” he said.

We’ll keep you posted, as this case is believed to be the first to cite emoticons as a legal defense.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently declined to hear a case which would have given school officials clear guidance on their authority to regulate students’ online speech.

Do you think this “emoticons” defense will hold up in court? Chime in below — and don’t forget to to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology knew its MITx online education program would attract many more students.

But 120,000 of them worldwide?!

That’s how many students are taking MIT’s first online offering – “Circuits and Electronics” – this spring.

“What is amazing is the amount of help students are giving each other,” says Anant Agarwal, director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

Like MIT, other top universities like Princeton and Penn are diving headfirst into the online education pool. And they’re giving it away for free (at least for now).

Is taking a college course with 120,000 people a problem? Let us know your opinion below.

Maybe so, based on the latest Pew Research Center poll showing adults are being more cautious on social-networking websites these days.

Here are the findings:

• 63% of adults maintain a social networking profile
• 58% keep their profiles private
• Just 20% have completely public profiles
• 63% delete friends, up from 56% in 2009
• 44% delete comments made by others on their profiles
• 37% remove their names from tagged photos

For more on the Pew study, click here.