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The U.S. Education Department’s civil rights enforcement arm has launched an investigation into a North Texas school district whose superintendent was secretly recorded ordering librarians to remove LGBTQ-themed library books.

accused the district of violating a federal law that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender. The ACLU complaint was based largely on an investigation published in March by NBC News, ProPublica and the Tribune that revealed that Granbury’s superintendent, Jeremy Glenn, instructed librarians to remove books dealing with sexual orientation and people who are transgender.

An Education Department spokesperson confirmed the investigation and said it was related to Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits schools from discriminating on the basis of sex, gender and sexual orientation.

The conference, hands-on workshops, science fair, performances, and other activities run October 10–16, one project is currently on view in the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons The New School for Design. The Assignment Book is an exhibition curated by Scholz and Christiane Paul, director of the graduate media studies program at The New School for Public Engagement and Adjunct Curator of New Media Arts at the Whitney Museum of American Art, that poses questions for the audience. It features work by artist Luis Camnitzer that grapples with some unresolved questions about digital learning, and is solicited visitors to the gallery to add to the conversation, subverting the traditional role of the artist as teacher. There will be a discussion about this exhibition between Camnitzer and Paul on October 11.

The event was successful from both historical and new metrics. Attendance surpassed projections and 1,700 new memberships were generated just from people waiting in line for the exhibition. More importantly for Ferriso, the city-wide experience changed how people perceive the museum.

Chinese residents from Chinatown got involved for the first time.

Kids showed up by the busloads. Local restaurants hosted after-parties for young patrons, and robust blog discussions were moderated by some of Portland's design community. By extending the conversation throughout the city, the museum was able to attract a new audience and re-energize its traditional base.

Data in a human context March 6, 2012 to Data Art  •  Comments (3)  •  Share on Twitter Jer Thorp, a data artist in residence at The New York Times, shows off some of his work (like this and this) and speaks about the connection between the real world and the mechanical bits we know as data. Worth your 17 minutes.

a data artist in residence at The New York Times, shows off some of his work (like this and this) and speaks about the connection between the real world and the mechanical bits we know as data.

Condensed matter theory physicist and quantum information expert Sankar Das Sarma has argued in MIT Technology Review that quantum computers remain a very long way away from cracking RSA-based cryptography.

An example of the methodology in crypto is the creation of a new wallet that generates a public address and private key.

Quantum security is seen as a major issue in the blockchain and crypto sector and it is widely believed that powerful quantum computers will one day become advanced enough to hack current cryptography.

Budget shortfalls are forcing states to come up with novel solutions for the wide disparities between poor and affluent school districts. The latest reminder was a New Jersey Supreme Court ruling in May that ordered the Legislature to increase spending for only the 31 poorest urban districts ("Court Orders New Jersey to Increase Aid to Schools," The New York Times, May 24). Not surprisingly, the decision did not please the other districts in the state. In light of the problem in New Jersey and in other states as well, perhaps it's time to consider what is known as weighted student funding. The Summer 2011 issue of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management contains a study by Helen F. Ladd and Edward B. Fiske titled "Weighted Student Funding in the Netherlands: A Model for the U.S.?" For the past quarter of a century, the Netherlands has been using a version of WSF for all its elementary schools serving children from ages 4 to 12.

SCIENCE fiction often gets a bad press from scientists, but firing our imagination about science and technology is absolutely vital. Sharing a vision of the good society, in which everybody has what they need to live well, is crucial to working towards it. So how do we imagine the contribution of science and technology to creating just futures?