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Six African-American high school students targeted for excessive criminal justice prosecution in Jena, Louisiana, will continue to be in the news for some time to come, and that's a good thing, because we all need to think hard about the attitudes and events that led to the exposure of a racially biased local social structure, including its criminal justice system.

According to Howard Witt, a national news reporter for The Baltimore Sun, U.S. Justice Department officials told members of a House Judiciary Committee this past Tuesday that they "are weighing an investigation into allegations of systemic racial bias in the administration of justice in the small, mostly white Louisiana town." (Click here for the article.)

While the Justice Department investigates, what can we teachers do to mitigate and eliminate racial bias in our schools and communities?

The Southern Poverty Law Center has a web project called Fight Hate And Promote Tolerance. Here they present Six Lessons from Jena, that you can use now in your classroom.

Teacher Magazine reports, "According to a 2006 survey conducted by Teaching Tolerance, the National Education Association, and the Civil Rights Project, most teachers claim their schools are free of ethnic or racial bias, yet federal studies reveal that one in four students are victims of racial or ethnic incidents during the course of the school year."

Take this opportunity to help eliminate racial bias in your community, and give us your assessment of the effectiveness of the lessons from The Southern Poverty Law Center.

A recent study published in Lancet, a British medical journal, reports that certain food coloring additives in drinks commonly consumed by children can cause or exacerbate hyperactivity in children. For a balanced view, read all three stories from Forbes, Yahoo.com (Associated Press), and Reuters.

...is the headline of a recent Science Daily article.

"A review of national and statewide surveys conducted over the last 15 years shows that among typical 4th graders, 10% have already had more than a sip of alcohol and 7% have had a drink in the past year. While the numbers are small in the fourth grade, the surveys show that the percent of children who have used alcohol increases with age, and doubles between grades four and six. The largest jump in rates occurs between grades five and six," according to John E. Donovan, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychiatry and epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center."

The article includes a brief review of statistics relating to drinking behaviors for older children and teenagers, as well as links to predisposition for illicit drug use.

Granted we're not talking about fourth graders hosting wild parties, but it seems we can play a part in getting the word out to parents, wouldn't you say?

Is there a market yet for locking refrigerators/wine racks/liquor cabinets?

Need more evidence of the need to educate children about the dangers of the internet? Look no further. A man in Boise, Idaho promised a free iPod to anyone who showed up to get it. Fortunately, someone got suspicious and the police showed up instead.

 The dangers have always been with us, but they now come in a new, fast, and much more accessible fashion.

 Read these stories from The Boise Statesman and Fox12Idaho.com.

 Parents, guard you children. Educators, likewise.

Here's a story from USA Today about efforts to involve Dallas families in the movement to slim down the nation's children.