Football player inspires teammates, fans

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I usually don't post my sports stories on this blog, but the one I wrote today for the DMN really isn't much about sports, and it has received a lot of response.

It's about a high school football player named Shawn Baldwin who had his best game ever about five hours after his mother's funeral. I traveled to Eustace, TX, to talk to him and his teammates on Wednesday and wrote up this column.

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Kids unable to read, write, add properly

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Schools are not doing the job, kids are not learning, and the country is going to a hell in a handbasket. Fortunately, this time, the news isn't about this country. This time it's in England, where a headline reads "Half of teenagers leave school unable to read, write or add properly." Despite a rise on 2007, only 47.6 percent of pupils achieved the desired five A* to C-grade GCSEs including English and maths , leaving ministers struggling to hit a 53 percent Treasury target by 2011. Got it? If not, maybe you're a "maths" person. Well, at least there's this bit of good news in the story: Statistics published today by the Department for Children, Schools and Families show that 440 schools are currently falling short of this benchmark - though that is an improvement on last year's dire figure of 631. So it seems to be getting more gooder than worser.
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