SOME INTERESTING STATS on the National Spelling Bee contestants. This one caught my eye:

Most spellers attend traditional public schools (179). The rest attend home schools (35), private schools (27), parochial (20) or charter schools (four).

That seems like a wildly disproportionate number in home schools. (And, if it isn’t, well, that’s news too.)

Speaking of the Spelling Bee, both Mr. Sun and Ed Cone have thoughts. And they’re both big fans of Spellbound, the Spelling Bee documentary that I’ve mentioned before. (Here’s a Brian Micklethwait post on the film.)

UPDATE: One of the spellers from Spellbound has started a blog! And a reader sends this revealingly clueless BBC review of the film. Sheesh. Compare this review with Brian Micklethwait’s post above.