Today's news

QUESTIONABLE SPENDING: Money intended to support scientific research went instead to pay for furniture, catering and t-shirts. Nope, it's not FAMU. It's the University of Florida, where an internal audit showed a lack of understanding over how to spend reseach funds, the AP reports.

CLOSE THE DOOR: The concept was to encourage interaction between students and teachers, community teaching and learning. What the open classroom really created was a lot of noise. And now districts are leaving the idea behind, the Orlando Sentinel reports.

SLEEP WELL: Nodding to research that shows teens perform better if they sleep later, a growing number of Palm Beach area high schools are adopting later start times, the Sun-Sentinel reports. As for the younger kids that must start earlier as a result of bus scheduling, oh well.

FROM THE OP-ED PAGES: Concerned about the rising number of failing Florida schools? Look no farther than their dismal science performance, Miami Herald columnist Fred Grimm writes. And, an effort by some college presidents to suppress the US News and World Report ranking of colleges and universities is anti-intellectual, Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson writes.

REGULATING DIPLOMA MILLS: California's law protecting students from these "schools" expired over the weekend, and there's a stiff debate over what to do next, the LA Times reports.