Bill,

People acquire words in different ways - through contact with friends, television, family. Also through reading, school, and general study. I think the value of a word a day is to learn a word with which one might not otherwise come into contact. No sense in learning simple words as those are words with which the children should already have come into contact.

This was an urban school, btw. I think they were trying to get kids thinking about their opportunities - not selling them on one thing or another. This school is in Alexandria, very close to D.C. I can well suppose they might share some of the same problems that D.C. has. I just checked their SOL scores - their school is failing. This despite the fact that they have 65 teachers and only 347 students (from their web page).

I think they're desperate to do something to inspire the kids.