...AND A STUDENT MAKES HIS MARK AS WELL

Just when the news of school shootings and threats of shootings has us discouraged about the state of America's youth, a youngster like Matt Miller comes along.

At age 13, the Monterey, Calif., lad was asked to write a mock grant proposal for English class.

Matt didn't mess around. Frustrated over his little brother's lack of a dyslexia diagnosis before the fifth grade, he furiously searched the Internet for everything he could find on the subject.

And he wrote a grant for a three-year plan to screen all incoming kindergarten students for the disorder.

Matt's project caught the eye of his brother's special school. Officials there helped him present it to the Pacific Grove, Calif., school district. And then Matt applied to the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and received a real $87,300 grant. The special school will administer it.

Matt deserves an A -- in English and in citizenship.