Education

The Kansas Supreme Court today has put on hold a decision from a district court that ordered Kansas lawmakers to hike spending on public schools.

On Friday, February 15, Kansas City Public Schools agreed to a plan to reopen the shuttered Hale Cook elementary school in the Waldo neighborhood.

The St. Mary's community is reeling from what they feel was the abrupt and insensitive way the diocese of Kansas City and St. Joseph closed their 160-year-old school.  Many of the families in the Independence,  Sugar Creek and Blue Springs areas are alums and have children and grandchildren there.

But the diocese says closing the 160-year-old school was strictly a business decision; the diocese couldn't pay the bills to keep the school open. The reason, they say, is the tumbling enrollment.  Only seven students enrolled for the 2013-2014 freshman class.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's traveling exhibit, Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals 1933-1945 opened at the Dean's Gallery at the Miller Nichols Library at UMKC. Stuart Hinds, head of Special Collections for UMKC libraries, joins us to talk about the exhibit and other events the museum is hosting to accompany the exhibit.

In the United States, Valentine's Day is celebrated or scorned by many, but what is love like around the world? William Jankowiak, professor of anthropology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and author of Intimacies: Love and Sex Across Cultures, joins us to talk about love across cultures.