CNN 2011-03-10

Take a look at some other stories that are making news across the country. A Baltimore community is mourning the death of a promising 1 teen boxer 2. 17-year-old Ronald Gibbs was stabbed to death over the weekend while trying to defend his older sister. Gibbs was preparing for the Olympics.

And the intern 3 honored for helping 4 save Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford's life is running for office. Political science major Daniel Hernandez is one of six candidates in the race for student government president at the University of Arizona. .

And here's something you don't hear every day. A would-be robber calls 911 because he's scared of the homeowner. In Portland, a man charged with breaking into a house says he was concerned the homeowner might have a gun. The homeowner also called 911 and that's when police found the suspect, 24-year-old Timothy James Chappic, locked in the bathroom.

And a couple is crossing the country themselves by horseback. We caught up with Richard and Jeanette McGrath in southwest Arkansas. They left California one year ago on their 4,000 mile trek 5 to Washington. They're going -- they're doing this to raise awareness 6 for a group called Hearts Up Ranch 7 that helps people with emotional problems. Good luck to them.

A little later today, President Obama heads to a Boston high school that's really cranking out the graduates. He'll say its proof that government business and philanthropy can work together and that it works.But here are two school stories that the President probably will be talking about. One, being a Florida teacher who stapled 8 a 7-year- old's embarrassing progress report to his shirt to make sure mom and dad would see it. And also this story, texting lingo 9 like LOL and OMG creeping into kids' school work.That's where Steve Perry comes in. Our education contributor. Steve, you're a principal. What would you do if -- what would you do if you saw a term paper turned in with a little BRB, LOL, any of the above?

Correct it. One of the biggest problems that our kids are facing right now is they are not learning what they need to learn in the classroom, they are not learning how to write. And unfortunately, they are communicating primarily through text.And unfortunately, what you see is that kids are writing entire papers like a page of just one paragraph because there are no text breaks within -- I mean, there are no paragraph breaks within texting.

From your view when you -- when you're hearing about this creeping into kids' schoolwork do you see this more of a school/teaching problem or a parenting problem?

I think it's a -- it's a school/teaching because just like Morse code before it or any other -- any other form of written communication that wasn't the written -- traditional written language, it's just an expansion of language and that's ok because there are only 145 characters you get on Twitter so you couldn't use the full word even if you wanted to in many cases.When we get in the classroom, it's our responsibility to make sure that we teach children exactly how to write. That's what we're being paid to do, that's what the expectation of the community is and that is what we should do.

And what about this other story, this Florida teacher stapling 10 a -- a progress report to a 7-year-old's shirt to make sure that his mom and dad would see it? Apparently 11, he wasn't taking home this, I'm guessing, not a very good progress report.

Does this work or is it just kind of serve as humiliation 12? I don't know.

It's ridiculous. It is -- it is a ridiculous lapse 13 of judgment 14 on the behalf of the teacher. And if the teacher really very badly wanted to communicate with the parent, there is this thing they call the telephone. In addition to that they also have the cell phone, and they also have e-mail. And, of course, text. They could LOL this all the way through.So we know that there are other forms of communication. The objective here was, in some way, I believe, the intent appears to have been to show the child that what he was doing was not appreciated by the teacher. Unfortunately, though, what gets lost in this is that this is apparently a child who does need some correction. So I'm hopeful that while the parents are upset about the way in which this teacher communicated the information that the information itself is not lost in the communication.

Yes and hopefully, it doesn't backfire. Because you're right, the child's work which clearly needs some help, is --

Yes.

That's being completely lost in this debate at this point.

Which it should not be. It's very easy for parents -- and parents do this all the time. They call me and they're all fired up about something in the way in which one of my teachers expressed it to the child but the fact remains 15 that there was a reason why an expression needed to be made. You're calling and you're angry at the teacher for embarrassing your child, but there is something that your child did that is embarrassing.

Right.

And let's focus on that.

So while the teacher was wrong, no doubt the parents definitely need to come together for a conference. And my hope is this principal puts everybody in the room and that they all like women and men have a conversation about what's most important here which is the child's performance because as a 7-year-old, if they're having that much trouble, then that could be a sign of things to come.They need -- they need to correct this right now