Nite Cap UPDATE
UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE
CORPORATE ED REFORM
Leaders Urge Colleges to Expand Sports Programs for Students With Disabilities
At the University of Illinois, work has been done since 1949 to provide programs specifically for disabled students on adaptive methods to include disabled students.
The world watched as Oscar Pistorius eased his prosthetic racing legs into the starting blocks on the track at the Olympics last summer, taking the first steps to making history as the first amputee to race with “able-bodied” competitors.
Many watched out of curiosity, having never seen it done. Some with disabilities watched because, with every step, he was bringing their dreams closer to reality.
National education leaders, in reiterating a message already cemented by the Rehabilitation Act, told colleges in
Jesse Owens’ family voices objection to proposed school closure
To Jesse Owens, all children were champions, the famed Olympian’s daughter said Tuesday evening, trying to save the West Pullman school named for her father from the Chicago Public Schools’ closing list.
Jesse Owens Community Academy is one of 54 schools proposed for closing, and …
Teachers in Florida sue state claiming job evaluation system is unfair
Teachers in Florida filed a lawsuit in federal court Tuesday, claiming the state’s new teacher evaluation system is unfair because it partly rates their job performance on test scores of students they don’t know and subjects they don’t teach.
Bill Introduced: S.689 Achievement Through Prevention Act
A bill to reauthorize and improve programs related to mental health and substance use disorders
Poor ALEC! Someone Disagrees with Their Radical Agenda
ALEC has operated in the background since 1973, funded by major corporations who want to advance a corporate-friendly agenda into state legislatures. Some 2,000 state legislators belong to ALEC and attend its posh conferences, where they hobnob with corporate lobbyists.
ALEC suffered a PR setback when Trayvon Martin was killed last year in Florida by a man who invoked ALEC’s “stand your ground” law. The bad publicity caused some 40 corporations to abandon ALEC.
It has written draft legislation for vouchers, charters, cyber charters, ending teacher tenure, ending collective
LAUSD board votes to improve abuse investigations
With 278 Los Angeles Unified educators sitting in "teacher jail," the school board voted Tuesday to streamline and improve the investigations of those accused of serious physical abuse or sexual misconduct.
HBCU Presidents Cite Personalized Recruiting, Intrusive Counseling Among Best Practices
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| President Michael Sorrell increased the retention rate at Paul Quinn College to 83 percent from about 60 or 65 percent “because we engaged and we intruded.” |
WASHINGTON — When Michael Sorrell assumed the presidency at Paul Quinn College, one of the first things he did was examine what successful small colleges were doing to achieve their results.
The exploration led him to visit similarly sized institutions throughout the country, from Babson College in Wellesley, Mass., where they “give you one year to prove you can cut it,” to Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash., a school that has a 90 percent retention rate and a high rate of alumni giving.
“You don’t get to Walla Walla by accident,” Sorrell said. “But it was worth the trip.”
After the campus visit, Paul Quinn began to adopt some of the most successful strategies that he discovered, from personalized recruiting like other institutions use to recruit athletes, to “intrusive counseling,” in order to turn
Life Among the Moneychangers – Mr. D at the Education Innovation Summit 2013
“And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, and said unto them, It is written, ‘My house shall be called the house of prayer; but you have made it a den of thieves.’” ~ Matthew 21:12-13
True, pure education is never about the money. Yet money can certainly help spread the gospel to the meekest of the flock…
(Pardon the biblical puns…being among venture capitalists made me a touch
Meet the Common Corps
We have been for a very long time now to bring meaningful reform to education with sadly mixed results. We've tried to set requirements for our schools' teachers to teach to standardized tests so that they all teach the same thing and we've created common core standards to even further bring the type of standardization to education that we've been craving since efficiency efforts first set their sights on education back at the beginning of the twentieth century.
However, it's never worked. Why? Simply put, you can give two McDonalds similar recipes and condiments, but if one is serving all beef patties and the other is serving burgers full of filler, they're just not going to turn out the same. The same is true of students who have radically different student bodies.
The Common Corps is our initiative to finally standardized the student bodies across all schools. Over the next
Boston University: Grad student killed, another injured in bombings
Boston University officials said Tuesday that one of the three people killed in Monday’s bombings at the Boston Marathon was a graduate student at the school, and another grad student was injured and remains in stable condition at a hospital. … Continue reading →
SHOW ME THE MONEY
I recently came across an article about a Census Bureau report that showed Illinois saw a 19 percent increase in tax revenue in the previous fiscal year, one of the highest jumps in the nation. In terms of state gains, only North Dakota and Alaska had greater percentage increases.
Illinois led the nation in personal income tax revenue growth, with an increase of nearly 40 percent in fiscal 2012.
State government tax collections in 2012 increased $34.3 billion, to a record $794.6 billion. The previous high was $779.7 billion in 2008.
How in the world can Illinois be on the verge of bankruptcy and unable to pay its obligations ? What are these legislators doing with all this money ? $794.6 BILLION IN ONE YEAR? Good grief, show me where all that money goes! Show me the money!
Would it be too much to ask to put some of that money towards repaying what the state stole from the
Moral Fables: Keeping the Hope Alive through Trauma
As many know, I have started a series, Moral Fables, on various topics at Spare Change News. This latest piece is about maintaining hope through trauma. This particular subject, that of hope, relates directly to those of you who are struggling or unable to pay off your student loan debt. (Admittedly, this is a moral fable about loving in a way that almost led to the entire annihilation of a woman's sense of self). Thus, it's really crucial - don't let go of your hope. Nothing, absolutely nothing should lead you to give up your own personal hope. I know that it's hard. There are millions and millions and millions of us who are trapped by debt, but the problem - as we all know - can no longer be ignored. Rest assured, the foot soldiers continue to wage a battle on behalf of the indentured educated class. Hang in there, comrades.
The following series of essays have been written while teaching ESL classes to adult students from all corners