Daily French Roast

Anne is reading …

CONNECTING Tammy Rigby, a fifth-grade science teacher at East Mooresville Intermediate, helping Grace Lateef, left, and Caitlyn Yaede with a class exercise.Jeremy M. Lange for The New York Times. Finally we have a positive story about American education with impressive results, writes the New York Times about Mooresville School District about 20 miles north of Charlotte. Best known for its connections to Nascar racing, the Mooresville Graded School District has emerged as the “defacto national model of the digital school.”

For decades Apple has enjoyed a positive relationship with schools and American educators.

“Other districts are doing things, but what we see in Mooresville is the whole package: using the budget, innovating, using data, involvement with the community and leadership,” said Karen Cator, a former Apple executive who is director of educational technology for the United States Department of Education. “There are lessons to be learned.”

The achievements are impressive. The district’s graduation rate alone has improved from 80 percent in 2008 to 91 percent in 2011. Mooresville ranks 100th out of 115 districts in North Carolina in terms of dollars spent per student — $7,415.89 a year. But it’s currently third in best test scores and second in graduation rates.

Technology appears to be the answer in Mooresville. Sixty teachers have lost their jobs without any negative impact on test scores or student enthusiasm about staying in school.

Let the Robot Drive

The autonomous car of the future is here, writes Wired.

More DFR

The Culture Wars

Image: Tom Pennington/Getty Contraception & The Woman Problem

Rick Santorum Wants to Fight ‘The Dangers of Contraception’, writes TIME. In a transcript of his interview with Evangelical blog Caffeinated Thoughts, Santorum agrees with Catholic bishops that contraception is “not okay”.

One of the things I will talk about that no President has talked about before is I think the dangers of contraception in this country, the whole sexual libertine idea. Many in the Christian faith have said, “Well, that’s okay. Contraception’s okay.”

It’s not okay because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. They’re supposed to be within marriage, they are supposed to be for purposes that are, yes, conjugal, but also [inaudible], but also procreative.

The Atlantic writes today what polls confirmed yesterday: Rick Santorum has a serious woman problem. The Atlantic reviews Santorum’s narrow senate victory in 2000 against then-Democratic Rep. Ron Klink.

Santorum won an impressive 57 percent of the vote among men; that number increased to 60 percent just looking at white men. But among women, Santorum lost to Klink, winning just 48 percent of the vote. Among white women, he barely inched past the Democrat, 52 to 47 percent.

Conservative writer Jennifer Rubin says that when considering the current Republican field, women (presumably Republican women) prefer Romney over Santorum by 38 vs 29 percent. The startling commentary came from the Atlanta Constitution’s Jay Bookman, reviewing the latest Pew national polling:

Obama has a 21-point lead over both Romney and Santorum among women. The margin is 59-38 percent. Among men, Obama actually trails by five against Romney and three against Santorum. That’s a 26-point swing between men and women, and I don’t recall ever seeing a gender gap that large.