If you're sitting on unused Marriott Rewards certificates, book your stay by May 16

    I've said for some time that the Marriott Rewards program is one of the best for casual travelers who want to score free lower-end hotel rooms with a minimum number of stays.
    The Marriott Megabonus, offered three times a year, offers most members a free-night certificate for each two paid nights. In the past these certificates have been limited to Category 1-4 hotels. So in New Orleans we could get a free room at the Springhill Suites in the Warehouse District, but not at the full Marriott on Canal Street. This suited us just fine.
    Earlier this year Marriott announced a pretty massive "devaluation," whereby many of its Cat 4 hotels were moving to Cat 5. This leaves us without an acceptable hotel option in New Orleans, Little Rock, and elsewhere. The silver lining is that the changes don't take effect until May 16 -- that's tomorrow!
    So if you're sitting on some of these certificates -- Jinny has five of them -- now would be a good time to book a possible trip. I'm studying the Ole Miss "Away" calendar and trying to think of a good time to visit New Orleans this fall. If you don't book now, your options may be limited.
    The "Loyalty Lobby" blog has a good explanation of these changes, along with advice to book rooms one night at a time so one can make changes.
    On the good news front, this summer's Megabonus offer for most is for certificates that are good for Cat 1-5 hotels. So we can still earn the certificates and they still have real value, allowing Marriott to retain its status as the top loyalty program for casual travelers, in my view.

MrFrancyPants: We've arrived!

My nephew, Jesse Hurdle, is spending the summer on the Georgia Tech satellite campus in Metz, France. He claims that he is going to blog about his experience, so I've added his blog to my blog list, at left. I'm not so sure how much I like the name of his blog, but maybe it will grow on me.

MrFrancyPants: We've arrived!: We're waiting at the airport now for our shuttle. I only got about a twenty minute nap on the plane, but it's 8am here so the day is...

   

After a long wait Ender's Game movie trailer is released; the book is available now

    I've never seen so much excitement over a movie trailer, but the first official trailer for Ender's Game has been released. The actual movie release date is Nov. 1, 2013.
    Ender has apparently been aged quite a bit. He's supposed to enter battle school just shy of his eighth birthday. Maybe the movie-makers decided the public couldn't stand to see an 8-year-old child being mistreated.
    The movie could be a dud, so by all means read the book. I encouraged Ash to read it in first grade and he cast it aside after finishing two-thirds of it, declaring it "boring." He took it up again in fifth grade and declared it among the best books he's ever read (if not the best).
   Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, has a Lexile rating of 780, which means it is slightly more difficult reading than The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson) by Rick Riorden (Lexile 740) and easier to read than most of the Harry Potter books. Most John Grisham books come in with a Lexile rating of below 700, so books like Ender's Game are truly written for all ages.
    Lucy has steadfastly refused to read Ender's Game, on the grounds that I recommended it. But I don't know of anyone who has read it who did not like it. So read the book so you can join the ranks of those who declare "The book was better," in six months.

I've got more statistics on ACT high scorers. In 2012, only 24 Mississippians made a 35 or 36

    My last blog post was about how eight Oxford High School students earned Star Student status by scoring a 35 or 36 on the ACT test. Normally there is only one STAR Student per school, but the rules stipulate that any student scoring a 35 or 36 with a 93 or higher average is entitled to STAR honors.
    I "guesstimated" that such a score would be in the 99.7th percentile or higher. Well, based on last year's scores it's far better. In 2012, 24 out of 28,288 Mississippi graduating seniors posted a best ACT score of 35 or 36. If these statistics hold true for this year, that means that these eight students are in the 99.9th percentile of Mississippi graduates.
    Nationally, 5,238 seniors graduated with a score of 35 or 36 on the ACT (which explains why Harvard and Yale are so hard to get in to!). This is out of 1,666,017 seniors reporting. So nationally, a score of 35 or higher places one in only the 99.7th percentile.
    It's really amazing. I would guess that you could take the 20th-ranked student from Oxford High School and place him or her randomly in any high school in the state; most times that student would likely end up being the STAR student and perhaps the valedictorian.
    I've said that the large Oxford National Merit classes are not an anomaly, but the new normal. Well, having such a large group of students scoring 35 or 36 on the ACT is an anomaly. I don't see another group like this any time soon. Of course, I hope I'm wrong!
    As always, good news like this should cause us to ask ourselves questions. Oxford clearly has some of the brightest kids not just in Mississippi, but in the United States. Is the school system doing everything it can to develop this talent, for example, by providing intensive foreign language instruction in the elementary grades, or AP classes starting in eighth grade? If not, why not?
    Second, is the city of Oxford prepared to capitalize on the school system's success in order to attract success-oriented parents? The city should plan a major advertising campaign aimed at getting highly successful people to move to Oxford to take advantage of the school system. Nothing breeds success like success. People with smart children are looking for good schools for their kids. Somebody just needs to tell them where the schools are. That's what advertising is for.

Here is a link to the 2012 National ACT score information.

Here is a link to the 2012 Mississippi ACT score information.

Oxford High School sets state record for number of STAR students -- 8 of them

    I'm not sure how I missed this story, but the Tupelo Daily Journal reported almost two weeks ago that Oxford High School has set an all-time state record by having eight students who have earned STAR Student status.
    The STAR Student program, operated by the Mississippi Economic Council, recognizes the student from each high school with the highest ACT score and an average of at least a 93. However, any student with a 35 or 36 on the ACT is also recognized as a STAR Student. Oxford apparently had eight students with either a 35 or 36 on the ACT test, and thus eight STAR Students.
    (Each STAR Student named a STAR Teacher, the teacher who most influenced him or her. One student named Jeffrey Jones, who teaches pre-algebra to sixth-graders at the middle school. Mr. Jones has certainly been one of the most effective teachers my children have had, and I think it's interesting that one of his former students recognized his efforts six years later.)
    All eight of this year's STAR Students were among the dozen National Merit Semifinalists that I named back in September, 2012. My understanding is that based on the scores already in and past-year's cutoff scores Oxford is looking at another bumper crop of National Merit Scholars for the 2013-14 school year as well.
    Having eight students score 35 or 36 on the ACT is actually a greater accomplishment than having a dozen National Merit Semi-Finalists. In Mississippi, it takes a score in roughly the 98.3rd percentile to earn Semi-Finalist status. On the ACT, the 99th percent starts with a composite score of 33. I would guesstimate that a score of 35 is in the 99.7th percentile or higher. Of course, the test-makes shouldn't force me to "guesstimate" these things, and should instead provide them in their charts.
    This is all just further evidence that Oxford has become a magnet for Mississippi's super-bright. The university has grown, and so we have more professor's kids. But lots of others are moving to Oxford in search of schooling for their children as well. And these children tend to be brighter than average; sometimes a lot brighter than average.
    I visited Oxford High School earlier this year with my son and left with the impression that students were encouraged to learn as much as possible as quickly as possible. That's what education is supposed to be about. The school district needs to make sure this policy is implemented in all of the Oxford schools.

Oxford Middle School assistant principal Roberson to lead Senatobia High School

Roberson

    Oxford Middle School assistant principal Bradley Roberson has accepted the principal's position at Senatobia High School, reports the Tate County Democrat.

    Roberson, a native of North Mississippi, graduated from Ripley High School and has a Masters of Education from the University of Mississippi, along with 13 years of experience in education as a teacher, coach and administrator.

During Roberson's tenure at Oxford, he has been named Teacher of the Year on three occasions and Administrator of the year once.

New Mountain Dew ad draws lots of attention, just the wrong kind

    Mountain Dew has released one of the shortest-lived ad campaigns of all time. In fact, the company is doing everything it can to suppress the ad, including the use of copyright law to keep the ad off Youtube. What I want to know is who within that corporation thought this would be a great ad to sell products.

    Mediate.com has an article describing the ad, which features a goat which has apparently sexually or otherwise assaulted a white woman, who is then asked to pick him out of a line-up of black men. If the commercial I've linked to gets taken down Mediate has a copy up that will likely survive fair use challenge.

    The ad was the creation of hip-hop artist Tyler the Creator, who supplies the voice of the goat. The black men in the line-up are his band members. Oh, but this commercial did not go over well at all.
    There is no need for me to reinvent the wheel here. Read the Mediate article to get the back story on what one university professor is calling the "most racist commercial of all time." What gets my goat is that this is the same company that killed off our beloved Frito Bandito on the grounds that the commercials were "racist." Nothing racist about them, and the pencil erasers were really neat. They get rid of the Frito Bandito and give us this. Sheesh!

UPDATE: As I predicted, Pepsi has used the threat of copyright infringement to pull the link I had off of Liveleak. You can still see the ad by clicking on the Mediate link above. As it is part of a news story, I believe the ad qualifies as fair use and Pepsi will not be able to force them to take the ad down.