Latest News and Comment from Education

Sunday, June 13, 2010

High school graduations are a hot ticket this year | OregonLive.com

High school graduations are a hot ticket this year | OregonLive.com

High school graduations are a hot ticket this year

Published: Sunday, June 13, 2010, 8:40 PM Updated: Sunday, June 13, 2010, 8:48 PM

This graduation season, tickets to high school ceremonies are creating a Justin Bieber-like frenzy.

Before students across the metro area pack auditoriums and football fields to walk the stage, some find themselves scrambling for graduation tickets for their extended or out-of-town family to listen to speeches, "Pomp and Circumstance" and more speeches.


Desperate students and their families have turned to Facebook, Craigslist or the cafeteria black market to snag tickets. But they'd better be prepared to pay.

"Some were selling on Facebook, or posting ads for tickets," said Nikki De Leon, who graduated from David Douglas High School on Wednesday night. "And people were buying them for $10, and some people were auctioning (them) off for $40."

School administrators across the metro area say they generally frown upon students making a buck on tickets that they get for free. Some said they try to stop sales before they happen, and others said they had no idea the scarcity of tickets was leading to potential under-the-cafeteria-table deals.

Depending on the venue and size of the graduating class, schools allot a certain number of tickets. Schools ask that students turn in their extra tickets or pass them along to friends.

Tigard High School Assistant Principal Barb Proctor first heard of a student trying to hawk tickets last year.

"I think a kid came to me and said, 'This kid wants to sell their tickets,'" Proctor said. "I said 'Well that's not going to fly.' I talked to the kid and it was over."

This year, each of Tigard's 450 graduates received eight tickets for the ceremonies Friday on the school's football field. Tigard administrators told students they wouldn't get more tickets from the school, so it would be up to them to secure tickets from other students.

Parents usually alert the school when they come across student entrepreneurs, Proctor said.

"Most of the parents that I have talked to have been like, 'That's not right, we're not going to do that,'" said Proctor, who has coordinated Tigard's graduations for a decade.

Blog U.: Speed and Sleep - Confessions of a Community College Dean - Inside Higher Ed

Blog U.: Speed and Sleep - Confessions of a Community College Dean - Inside Higher Ed

Free Technology for Teachers: Learning Chocolate - Activities for Learning English

Free Technology for Teachers: Learning Chocolate - Activities for Learning English

Learning Chocolate - Activities for Learning English

Learning Chocolate is a nice little resource for ESL/ELL students.Learning Chocolate offers six learning activities in dozens of word categories. Pick a word category such as animals or clothing then listen to the pronunciations of the words in that category. After reviewing the pronunciations students can choose from five different activities. Each word category offers three matching games, a fill in the blank game, and dictation activity in which students spell the words as they're read to them.

Applications for Education
Learning Chocolate could be a good resource for teachers in search of activities that students can do independently or at home with parents. Learning Chocolate also offers teachers the option to build activities

Lobbyists aid for-profit college student group - Boston.com

Lobbyists aid for-profit college student group - Boston.com

Lobbyists aid for-profit college student group

FILE - In this Dec. 22,2009 file photo Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa gestures during a news conference on Capitol Hill, in Washington. Harkin last week announced plans to hold hearings starting June 24 to examine federal education spending at for-profit colleges.FILE - In this Dec. 22,2009 file photo Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa gestures during a news conference on Capitol Hill, in Washington. Harkin last week announced plans to hold hearings starting June 24 to examine federal education spending at for-profit colleges. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari, File)
By Eric Gorski
AP Education Writer / June 13, 2010
Text size +
A few months ago, Dawn Connor was just another college student, attending night courses to become a veterinary technician and practicing her trade by spaying and neutering dogs and cats from a local shelter.
Discuss
COMMENTS (0)
These days, the 33-year-old from Eau Claire, Wis., is shaking hands on Capitol Hill and speaking at news conferences in Las Vegas, the new public face of the satisfied for-profit college student.
Standing closely behind her is the Career College Association, a lobbying group for for-profit schools that provided the organizational muscle to launch the grassroots-sounding Students for Academic Choice at a time when for-profit colleges are under fire.
The Career College Association helped the students establish a website, draft bylaws and set up an online election that resulted in Connor being elected the group's president -- all at a time when for-profit colleges are intensifying lobbying efforts against tougher federal regulations expected to be proposed in the coming days.
"I'm skeptical of the organic nature of the group given that it is completely towing the association's line," said Christine Lindstrom, higher education program director at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.
Harris Miller, president of the Career College Association, said his group extended a helping hand to busy nontraditional students who otherwise wouldn't have a voice -- and says the new group stands on its own.
"This will be, I think, as this organization grows and gets legs, an effective antidote to those people who hang on a few disgruntled students or former

Many Schools Teach Engineering in Early Grades - NYTimes.com

Many Schools Teach Engineering in Early Grades - NYTimes.com

In a Glen Rock, N.J., kindergarten, testing  a wolf-proof house.
Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times
In a Glen Rock, N.J., kindergarten, testing a wolf-proof house.
To compete in a global economy, some school districts are offering engineering lessons to students in kindergarten.
THE BAY CITIZEN
Nina McMurry, right, and Angie McPhaul have been active in a student group involved in the issue of conflict minerals.

Stanford Considers Guideline for ‘Conflict Minerals’

Stanford has become the focus of a grass-roots effort to pressure the technology industry to crack down on “conflict minerals.”
BIG CITY

Arabic Class Becomes a Popular Choice

The language course at Friends Seminary, a school in the East Village, is influencing students before and after graduation.
CHEAT SHEET
Karren Bailey, center, and Joan Anderson, right, Norfolk, Va., school officials, discuss an inquiry.

Under Pressure, Teachers Tamper With Tests

Experts say cases of teachers altering test scores have risen along with the stakes involved in testing.

Students to Protest Possible End of Free Rides

The event will come one day after Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced the start of a task force to combat absenteeism and truancy.

Schools Matter: Charter Industry's New Spin on Rotten Charter Schools: Blame Parents and Educators

Schools Matter: Charter Industry's New Spin on Rotten Charter Schools: Blame Parents and Educators

Charter Industry's New Spin on Rotten Charter Schools: Blame Parents and Educators

Even though Newsweek has earned its demise through its allegiance to the corporate information filters, it has apparently decided to double down on its commitment to misleading the public, particularly on education issues. This week's leading entry is an unsigned piece called "Understanding Charter Schools" that breaks new ground by reporting on the only peer-reviewed national charter study exactly a year after the study was released in June 2009:
. . . it came as a bit of a shock to the community of educational reformers last year when a study by Stanford University’s Center for Research on Educational Outcomes (CREDO) found that 37 percent of charter schools produce

NorthJersey.com: Thousands celebrate at NYC Puerto Rican Day Parade

NorthJersey.com: Thousands celebrate at NYC Puerto Rican Day Parade

Thousands celebrate at NYC Puerto Rican Day Parade
Sunday, June 13, 2010
LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY JUNE 13, 2010, 5:40 PM
WIRE SERVICE
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK — With smiles and cheers, music and dancing, a sea of revelers decked out in the red, white and blue of Puerto Rico's flag stood along Fifth Avenue on Sunday to celebrate the Puerto Rican Day Parade.
Parade king Marc Anthony and his wife Jennifer Lopez make their way up Fifth Avenue during the Puerto Rican Day Parade Sunday.
AP
Parade king Marc Anthony and his wife Jennifer Lopez make their way up Fifth Avenue during the Puerto Rican Day Parade Sunday.
"I like to see the people with all the energy they have," said 68-year-old Jorge Malave of West New York, N.J., a regular at the parade who was born in Puerto Rico and came to the United States when he was 10.
Claudia Albarado was lined up next to the parade route by 8:30 a.m., hours before the start, to stake out a good spot. The 65-year-old, born in Puerto Rico and living in Union City, N.J., was wearing a T-shirt that said "When I die and Heaven does not want me, take me straight to Puerto Rico."
"I see all my people here. I'm very happy," she said.
The annual event is known for bringing out huge crowds — Sunday's parade-goers stood several people deep to watch — as it makes its way up Fifth Avenue with

Reactions to possible Jefferson High School closure as diverse as the residents in its attendance zone | OregonLive.com

Reactions to possible Jefferson High School closure as diverse as the residents in its attendance zone | OregonLive.com

Reactions to possible Jefferson High School closure as diverse as the residents in its attendance zone

Published: Sunday, June 13, 2010, 4:41 PM Updated: Sunday, June 13, 2010, 4:42 PM
marlonmiles.june10.2010.JPGView full sizeMarlon Miles (left), a 2009 graduate of Jefferson High School, and 2008 graduates Wayne Forthan (middle) and Jonathan Hall said the school has a family feel. All have relatives who attended or hoped to attend the North Portland school, now threatened with closure.
The Portland School Board's plan to close Jefferson High and disperse students in its zone to four other high schools has elicited diverse reactions, much in keeping with the diversity of the families who live in that gentrified swath of inner North and Northeast Portland.

No community ever wants to lose its high school. But in the case of Jefferson, issues of race, class and history mean the reaction is even more ferocious and complex.

"When you look at the decision to close Jefferson in light of the district's undeniable history of continually giving Jefferson short shrift, one can only surmise this was the intention all along," Eric Van Der Wolf, parent of a 2010 Jefferson graduate and vice chairman of the site council, said Friday.


African American leaders say closing the school is a racist blow, unfairly striking students and neighborhoods in the heart of the city's historic African American population center. Dismantling Jefferson on the grounds that it is small and low-achieving would be a final insult, they say, given that the district has systematically undermined the school, helping cause those very problems.

But among the legions of families who live in the Jefferson zone but have chosen or made plans to send their children to other schools, many are breathing sighs of relief that their child can now attend Benson, Grant, Madison or Lincoln.

Among parents, attitudes are split largely, but not exclusively, along racial lines, with white parents most in favor of closing Jefferson. But it's not that cut and dried. Some African American parents from the Jefferson neighborhood have testified passionately about their desire to preserve Benson High as the best place for their child. Some white people testified passionately about the need to keep, and rebuild, Jefferson.

Currently, Jefferson has only 430 students, about 330 of them from the neighborhood. The school is 60 percent African American, 17 percent Latino and 13 percent white, making it the only