Latest News and Comment from Education

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Black Male Grad Rates: Despair, And A Ray Of Hope : NPR

Black Male Grad Rates: Despair, And A Ray Of Hope : NPR

Black Male Grad Rates: Despair, And A Ray Of Hope

A new study reports that only 47 percent of black male students entering high school in the fall of 2003 graduated in 2008. For white males, the graduation rate was 78 percent. But one state, New Jersey, managed to raise its black male graduation rate by nearly 30 points

Sept. 16 in Argentina to be Massive � occupy california

Sept. 16 in Argentina to be Massive � occupy california

Sept. 16 in Argentina to be Massive

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – For the past four weeks, high school and university students in Argentina have occupied over 30 high school buildings, several buildings at the University of Buenos Aires, and have occupied the National University of Arts (IUNA) in response to cuts, new reforms and poor building maintenance, among a plethora of social issues and issues that plague education. During this time, multiple squats have been attacked by police forces and the student movement has faced heavy repression. In an effort to unify the movement and to reach out to other struggles, students are organizing for day of action on September 16th.

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Have Fun With “Dotty-Dots” | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

Have Fun With “Dotty-Dots” | Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day...

Chicago: What do you want from the next mayor? � Fred Klonsky's blog

Chicago: What do you want from the next mayor? � Fred Klonsky's blog

TIFF '10 | Oscar Winner Guggenheim Fights Malaise in 'Superman' - indieWIRE

TIFF '10 | Oscar Winner Guggenheim Fights Malaise in 'Superman' - indieWIRE

TIFF ‘10 | Oscar Winner Guggenheim Fights Malaise in “Superman”

by Brian Brooks (Updated 17 hours, 50 minutes ago)
TIFF ‘10 | Oscar Winner Guggenheim Fights Malaise in “Superman”
Microsoft's Bill Gates and "Waiting for Superman" director Davis Guggenheim in Toronto Saturday. [Photo by Brian Brooks/indieWIRE]

Academy Award-winning doc filmmaker Davis Guggenheim at moments became emotional, choking up as he spoke about one of the girls, Daisy, he profiles in his latest film, “Waiting for Superman,” which exposes the breakdown in American education.

“I’ve watched this movie 40 times and I watch Daisy in East Los Angeles and she’s motivated, smart and her father works as a truck driver, while her mother cleans hospital rooms. She wants to be a doctor and her parents have hope. They believe that if they do their part that America will do its part.”

At the core of “Superman” is whether America has the will and courage to face up to its spiraling public education system. While it has been generally accepted that education in America has faced a frightening decline, with statistics to back up that fear, Guggenheim (“An Inconvenient Truth”) hopes that the film will motivate people to believe that a crisis that may appear intractable can be reformed and improved despite the perception that it is a system stymied by entrenched paralysis.

Home - Inside Higher Ed

Home - Inside Higher Ed

Monitoring the For-Profits

Education Department and accreditors say it's not their job to police colleges, and point to states. Wisconsin regulators are willing -- but not quite able -- to patrol the beat.

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Raising the Bar

The Flagship Language programs are proficiency-based, organized around the goal that all students get to professional-level competency. Students are accepting the challenge.

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Pushing the Envelope

University of Dayton explains its recent enrollment success in part by the packaging (literally).

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'The iConnected Parent'

Authors of new book discuss the pitfalls of parenting a college student in the digital age -- and offer advice for parents.

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Sunday links. � Fred Klonsky's blog

Sunday links. � Fred Klonsky's blog

Sunday links.

(Photo by illinijonesey)

Chicago charter operators are speaking out of two side of their mouths. When Chicago charter teachers wanted to organize a union, the private management operators said the usual state labor rules shouldn’t apply because they were private, not public. Now they want to be public in order to get federal money from the edujobs bill.

Jeez. This is a first. The IEA leadership has finally decided to stop endorsing the anti-union Mark Kirk.

Vote in my Chicago mayor issues poll. As Harold Washington always said, “It’s the plan, not the man.”

Web's #1 Source for K12 and Higher Education News and Commentary - EducationNews.org

Web's #1 Source for K12 and Higher Education News and Commentary - EducationNews.org



Julia Steiny: Finally, R.I. gets serious about consolidated school busing
9.12.10 - Little Rhode Island has roughly 145,000 public school children and 36 distinct school districts, using 36 unrelated bus systems. Picture half-empty yellow buses crisscrossing the state to carry the kids who go to school out of their home districts, to private, charter or special-needs schools. It's nuts.

Teachers on front lines offer ideas to fix troubled schools
9.12.10 - Once upon a time, "Room 222," a television show about a troubled high school, attracted a national audience. The veteran teacher was handsome. The beginning teacher was perky. The principal was gruff. The theme song had a flute. ...

VIPs drop in on dropouts, and invite them to school
9.12.10 - More than 1,000 Houston dropouts woke up Saturday morning to an unexpected knock on their door from some of the city's top dignitaries. ...

Barack Obama's speech to schoolkids again stirs debate
9.12.10 - President Barack Obama will give his second back-to-school speech on Tuesday, streamed live to schoolchildren in Arizona and across the country. ...

Commentaries






















Beyond Politics: Removing the Progressive Drag on America
9.11.10 - Jeff Perren - They control curricula for public K-12 education almost everywhere, despite the presence of a great many teachers who disagree with their views. Progressive educators' numbers are bolstered by the roughly 70-85% of college educators and administrators who identify as liberals.

The Life-Changing Lottery
9.11.10 - Marcus A. Winters - Charter schools offer inner-city kids a shot at success-but only if they're lucky. Please, please, please," whispered the boy sitting to my left in the crowded auditorium, clenching his fists.

Every child can excel: If only the teachers unions would get behind schools that work

Every child can excel: If only the teachers unions would get behind schools that work

Every child can excel: If only the teachers unions would get behind schools that work

Sunday, September 12th 2010, 4:00 AM

A very long time ago, I got a job I didn't deserve: teaching English at one of the best private schools in the country, Harvard School (now Harvard-Westlake) in Los Angeles. I had lucked out and knew it, and I tried to keep my mouth shut and learn as much as I could from my erudite colleagues.

The following year, the school made a second improbable hire. The new English teacher, Mike Piscal, was fresh out of college, a rugby player from New Jersey who couldn't pronounce the names of half the characters in "The Odyssey" and who handed back his first set of sophomore essays printed with red wine stains. During his second week of school he pissed off the chairwoman of the board of trustees (a personage I'd never laid eyes on) so severely he had to go on the lam, spending his free periods in the trainer's office



Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/09/12/2010-09-12_every_child_can_excel_if_only_the_teachers_unions_would_get_behind_schools_that_.html#ixzz0zKLEhGb4