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Illinois data on stimulus-related jobs saved, created don't add up

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Chicago Tribune - By Bob Secter, Erika Slife - Nov. 04 (News Report) - More than $4.7 million in federal stimulus aid so far has been funneled to schools in North Chicago, and state and federal officials say that money has saved the jobs of 473 teachers. Problem is, the district employs only 290 teachers. "That other number, I don't know where that came from," said Lauri Hakanen, superintendent of North Chicago Community Unit Schools District 187. The Obama administration last week released the first round of data designed to underpin the worthiness of its economic stimulus plan, which so far has directed $1.25 billion to Illinois schools. That money has helped save or create 14,330 school jobs in the state, the administration claimed.

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No Einstein in Your Crib? Get a Refund

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Tamar Lewin - Oct. 24 (News Report) - The Walt Disney Company is offering refunds for its “Baby Einstein” videos, a tacit admission that they did not increase intellect.

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From North Carolina, a model of how to transform education

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Independent - By Johann Hari - Oct. 16 (News Analysis) - In small numbers, in an ordered environment, these poor children can quickly be brought up to the level of the rest, and indeed exceed them in many cases. But when they form the majority of a school's pupils, the teachers can't cope, discipline breaks down, and learning stops. A school for poor children soon becomes a poor school.

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College for $99 a Month

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Monthly - By Kevin Carey - Oct. 05 (Special Report) - Colleges are caught in the same kind of debt-fueled price spiral that just blew up the real estate market. They’re also in the information business in a time when technology is driving down the cost of selling information to record, destabilizing lows.

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Can the Right Kinds of Play Teach Self-Control?

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Paul Tough - Sep. 27 (Special Report) - Over the last few years, a new buzz phrase has emerged among scholars and scientists who study early-childhood development, a phrase that sounds more as if it belongs in the boardroom than the classroom: executive function. Originally a neuroscience term, it refers to the ability to think straight: to order your thoughts, to process information in a coherent way, to hold relevant details in your short-term memory, to avoid distractions and mental traps and focus on the task in front of you. And recently, cognitive psychologists have come to believe that executive function, and specifically the skill of self-regulation, might hold the answers to some of the most vexing questions in education today.

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Elite Saudi university set to open

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Aljazeera - Sep. 24 (News Report) - Saudi Arabia has set up a new research university, a multibillion dollar co-educational venture built on the promise of scientific freedom.

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The Rural Brain Drain

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Chronicle of Higher Education - By Patrick J. Carr, Maria J. Kefalas - Sep. 24 (Special Report) - American youth are abandoning the Midwest's small towns. The sociologists Patrick J. Carr and Maria J. Kefalas explore causes and remedies.

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Must-know figures could change for Texas students

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - By April Castro - Sep. 16 (News Report) - Does civil rights activist Cesar Chavez belong alongside Benjamin Franklin as an example of a model American citizen? Should Texas schoolchildren be required to identify Rush Limbaugh? How big a place does the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall — most famous for his victory in integrating the nation's schools — deserve in the history books? The conservative-dominated Texas State Board of Education debates changes beginning Thursday to the social studies curriculum of the state's 4.6 million K-12 students, and both conservatives and liberals say the other is attempting to rewrite history

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An Army of Home-Schooled "Christian Soldiers" On a Mission to "Take Back America for God"

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Robert Kunzman - Sep. 07 (Special Report) - “America is in a culture war. A few good soldiers can make a difference. Equip yourself and come join the battle!” So proclaimed the founders of Generation Joshua, a civics program from the Home School Legal Defense Association begun in 2003. “Our goal is to ignite a vision in young people to help America return to her Judeo-Christian foundation,” its leaders explained. “We provide students with hands-on opportunities to implement that vision.” As I began my homeschooling research six years ago, the birth of Generation Joshua caught my attention. Here was a civics education program aimed at homeschoolers, one that clearly sought to help nurture in students an idea and practice of citizenship informed and energized by their deep religious convictions. Perhaps the homeschooler president of Michael Farris’s dream would emerge from such an education.

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Back to School: Military Recruiters Increasingly Targeting High School Teens

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

TruthOut - By Juan Gonzalez - Sep. 04 (News) - Journalist David Goodman writes in the new issue of Mother Jones, quote, "Using data mining, stealth websites, career tests, and sophisticated marketing software, the Pentagon is harvesting and analyzing information on everything from high school students' GPAs and SAT scores to which video games they play. Before an Army recruiter even picks up the phone to call a prospect, the soldier may know more about the kid's habits than do his own parents."

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Conservatives Revolt Over Obama Speech to Students - Political Hotsheet

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - By Brian Montopoli - Sep. 03 (News) - "The idea that school children across our nation will be forced to watch the President justify his plans for government-run health care, banks, and automobile companies, increasing taxes on those who create jobs, and racking up more debt than any other President, is not only infuriating, but goes against beliefs of the majority of Americans, while bypassing American parents through an invasive abuse of power," he said.

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Student Debt Grows Dramatically

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Anne Marie Chaker - Sep. 03 (News Report) - Students are borrowing dramatically more to pay for college, accelerating a trend that has wide-ranging implications for a generation of young people. New numbers from the U.S. Education Department show that federal student-loan disbursements—the total amount borrowed by students and received by schools—in the 2008-09 academic year grew about 25% over the previous year, to $75.1 billion. The amount of money students borrow has long been on the rise. But last year far surpassed past increases, which ranged from as low as 1.7% in the 1998-99 school year to almost 17% in 1994-95, according to figures used in President Barack Obama's proposed 2010 budget.

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Can a Lack of Sleep Set Back Your Child's Cognitive Abilities?

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Magazine - By Po Bronson - Aug. 29 (Investigative Report) - Overstimulated, overscheduled kids are getting at least an hour’s less sleep than they need, a deficiency that, new research reveals, has the power to set their cognitive abilities back years.

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Dream of a Common Language. Sueño de un Idioma Común

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Texas Monthly - By Nate Blakeslee - Aug. 24 (Special Report) - ... the dual language experiment has been a success by any measure. By the sixth grade, kids in the program—regardless of which language they spoke when they first enrolled—are outscoring native English speakers on the TAKS tests. They can also read, write, and speak Spanish at a sophisticated level.

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Asian Americans' Rising Suicide Rates -- Three Students Take their Lives - NAM

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New America Media - By Andrew Lam - Aug. 13 (News Analysis) - Three Chinese-American students at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have killed themselves in the last three months. Two died by helium asphyxiation and the cause of death of the third student, though deemed a suicide, is yet to be determined. Their stories have been covered in the Chinese language media, but remain virtually unreported in the mainstream.

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New Facebook iPhone App ’Pretty Much Done’

Sat, 08 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By MG Siegler - Aug. 08 (News Report) - As one of the most popular applications on Apple’s popular iPhone platform, a lot of users are eagerly awaiting the next version of the app. And that wait is almost over.

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Pakistan: Ruined Farmers Say Children Won't Go to School

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Inter Press Service - By Ashfaq Yusufzai - Aug. 06 (Special Report) - PESHAWAR, Aug 6 (IPS) - Fertile Swat's famous orchards of peach, plum and apple were just starting to ripen when the Pakistan military launched an air and land attack on Taliban fighters in end-April, uprooting tens of thousands of civilians.

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Is Google Killing General Knowledge?

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

moreintelligentlife.com - By Brian Cathcart - Aug. 05 (Special Report) - The average student, though better-informed than the earl’s daughter appears to be, seems not to value general knowledge. If asked a factual question, they will usually click on a search engine without a second thought. Actually knowing the fact, committing it to memory, does not seem to be a consideration.

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Pakistan's Swat children back to school

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Aljazeera - By Kamal Hyder - Aug. 04 (Special Report) - Children in Pakistan's battle-scarred Swat Valley are heading back to school for the first time since May. Many are returning to classes in buildings damaged by the recent fighting between the Taliban and Pakistani security forces.

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Campers for Peace

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

flypmedia.com - By Tara Kyle - Jul. 29 (Special Report) - A summer camp famous for bringing Israeli and Palestinian teens together takes on the conflicts of South Asia.

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As Charter Schools Unionize, Many Debate Effect

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Sam Dillon - Jul. 27 (News) - Questions linger about whether unions will strengthen the schools by stabilizing their teaching forces, or weaken them by blocking changes thought to raise achievement. Some teachers disagreed. Theresa Furr, a second-grade teacher at the Wrightwood campus, said she opposed unionization. “Every meeting I went to,” Ms. Furr said, “it was always ‘What can we get?’ and never ‘How is this going to make our students’ education better?’ ”

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This is how we let it happen, Ma'am ...

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Heather Stewart - Jul. 26 (News Report) - A group of eminent economists has written to the Queen explaining why no one foresaw the timing, extent and severity of the recession. The three-page missive, which blames "a failure of the collective imagination of many bright people", was sent after the Queen asked, during a visit to the London School of Economics, why no one had predicted the credit crunch. Signed by LSE professor Tim Besley, a member of the Bank of England monetary policy committee, and the eminent historian of government Peter Hennessy, the letter, a copy of which has been obtained by the Observer, tells of the "psychology of denial" that gripped the financial and political world in the run-up to the crisis. The content was discussed at a seminar at the British ...

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The 1976 West Point Class of Generals Leading in Iraq and Afghanistan

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Yochi J. Dreazen - Jul. 25 (Special Report) - The cadets of 1976 graduated from West Point at a low moment for the army and its storied training ground. But that year produced the generals running the nation’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as their key deputies. What happened?

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Gates's liberal college town no stranger to racial dust-ups

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Christian Science Monitor - By Patrik Jonsson - Jul. 23 (News Report) - Prominent allegations of racism have been made in the recent past at Harvard and MIT – the two storied universities in Cambridge, Mass.

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Obama Uses Funding to Pressure Education Establishment for Change

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Michael Shear, Nick Anderson - Jul. 23 (News) - The pressure campaign has been underway for months as Education Secretary Arne Duncan travels the country delivering a blunt message to state officials who have resisted change for decades: Embrace reform or risk being shut out.

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