September 15th, 2011 issue #1037

September 15th, 2011

  • Glitchy system: Inside the student software debacle

    Why did Albemarle County school officials commit nearly $2 million to a software system that has proven faulty, despite multiple complaints from teachers that using it was a "waste of time," and an admission from one County school official that it was "glitchy, to say the least"? At a time when school systems are facing budget cuts, losing teachers, and seeing classroom size increase, spending on technology has soared. Indeed, terms like "digital learners" and "data driven education" have captured the imaginations– and purse strings– of school administrators.

    read more

4Better Or Worse

  • The week in review

    Most epochal: The 10th anniversary of September 11. Most torrential: A five o'clock thunderstorm September 12 brings hail, a tree on top of a car on JPA, and a stalled car ...

The Dish

  • Street cred: West Main relaxes

    West Main– from the infamous cop-hits-wheelchair man intersection to the one just before the once-controversial dusty Amtrak parking lot– was the site of the se...

Question of the Week

Real Estate - $old

  • Barry's bargain

    7/19/11 Julie Neuman to Donald Nathan, 108 Village Court, $260,000, Charlottesville John Patteson to Alexander Ix III, 146 Burnet Street, $302,500, Charlottesville Richard ...

Real Estate - On the Block

Real Estate Property auctions

  • Property auctions

    September 15 at 4pm at the Albemarle Courthouse Property: 4365 Taylor Creek Road, Afton Debtor: Page E. Turner Amount owing: unknown Bidder brings: $10,000 Info: Mark B....

Art Features

DR. HooK

Movie Reviews

Music Features

News

On Architecture

The Brazen Careerist

Sports Doctor

Strange But True

Online only

  • Bald eagle on 9/10

    On a day when the streets of nearby Washington teemed with machine gun-toting officers and traffic diversions to ward off any 9/11 weekend terror, a juvenile bald eagle ent...

  • Car extrication in Greenwood

    A car driven into a drainage ditch at the Rockfish Gap Country Store in Greenwood gets extricated by a passing samaritan in a big blue pickup truck.

  • Sunken deer

    A deer that died of unknown causes lies submerged in a tiny pond on private property in the West Leigh subdivision during the 2009-10 hunting season. As they did that seaso...

  • Table of contents

    COVERGlitchy systemWhen Albemarle County schools adopted the SchoolNet data management system, administrators touted it as a high tech tool that would increase efficiency. ...

Facetime

Letters

  • Flaws a masterful exposé

    Congratulations. With your July 28 cover story "FLAWS," in which you describe the dredge/dam issue, you demonstrate again why you are by far the most important local news r...

  • Hook has the real skinny

    Being from New York I am a life long cynic and suffer from a terminal degree of sarcasm. It does my heart good to read the real skinny as to what goes on behind the stories...

  • Reagan cartoon tasteless, insensitive

    I saw the tasteless cartoon about Ronald Reagan "rising from the dead following the prayers of 'Tea Baggers'" for the 2012 Presidential campaign, on page 44 of the [July 21...

  • Trader Joe's looks like a mausoleum

    After viewing the artist's rendering of the new Trader Joe's [Aug 18: "First view: Designers reveal look for Trader Joe's, Stonefield"] all I can think of is a community ma...

Black and White

  • Woolen Mills Chapel

    Near the end of Market Street in Charlottesville.~Commentator Bill Emory puts up a new photo nearly every day at billemory.com/blog.