LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Jefferson Thomas, one of the first nine black students to enroll in desegregated Arkansas' schools, has died at age 68 in Columbus, Ohio.
Fellow Little Rock Nine member Minnijean Trickey Brown says Thomas died Sunday. Trickey Brown did not know the cause of death and declined further comment.
In 1957, Thomas and Trickey Brown joined Elizabeth Eckford, Carlotta Walls LaNier, Gloria Ray Karlmark,
A piece I wrote for the Washington Post last week got a fair bit of feedback. It was a summary of thoughts around a comment made at the recent Bullying Prevention Summit in Washington, D.C., and concerned a phrase used by one of the presenters, who described classrooms as a “community of 30.” As I wrote in the article, the concept is not too remarkable…except when you consider the implications.
“Community of 30″ is the idea that the school—and, more so, the classroom—is a place where students learn cognitively as well as socially and emotionally. Children are there to learn not only how to read, write, add, and subtract, but also how to work together as a group, a team, and a community.
We already have the structures and settings to guide this. Children test out behaviors in the home, typically a safe and finite environment to grow and practice social interactions. Interactions take place between a regulated number of people—immediate family, then extended family, friends, and neighbors—and around a
The American Federation for Children (AFC) is putting significant money and resources toward 3 Milwaukee elections. The AFC is a Michigan-based right wing organization with ties to Milwaukee’s voucher movement and in support of mayoral control of public schools. They are supporting Jeff Plale against Chris Larson, Angel Sanchez against Jocasta Zamarripa and Stephanie Findley in the Northside primary. This is being done with hopes of furthering the voucher cause and destroying American public education.
The American Federation for Children (found at http://www.federationforchildren.com/) is led by Elisabeth “Betsy” DeVos. She is the former chairman
I will take my children or a child to school and I will be at a school on the first day to encourage all children to do their best every day at school.
I am responsible for the education of my child.
I will volunteer at my child?s school three times this school year.
I will pick up my child?s progress report or grade report when required.
I will meet with my child’s teachers at least two times this year and support them in educating my child.
I will teach my child the value of family as well as the value of education.
I will work with my child?s mother or guardian to achieve the best academic and social outcomes for my child even if I do not live with my child.
The Million Father March is a community program of the Black Star Project represented by Street Positive™
August 23rd is the first day of the fall school year for students in Florida, and a day when fathers are asked to step up, and be their for their kids.
The Million Father March, created by the Black Star Project in Chicago, Illinois, encourages dads to take responsibility for getting their kids to school on the first day back to class, and this year, the Miami Urban League is taking the initiative to promote the March in Miami.
About the Million Father March:
How university students are spending less time hitting the books while earning better grades than ever
In 2006, Philip Babcock, a labour economist at the University of California, was surfing online when he came across a survey on the time use of undergraduate students at his school that shocked him. He noticed students were reporting perplexingly low studying times. Comparing his own university experience to his teaching experience over the past five years, Babcock had a gut feeling students weren’t studying as much, but remembers thinking, “people are always criticizing the generation that comes after them. Maybe they’re working their tails off.” So he decided to test the hypothesis. In the resulting study, to be published in the Review of Economics and Statistics later this year, Babcock and his co-author, Mindy Marks, found that since 1961, the amount of time an average undergraduate student spends studying has declined by 42 per cent, from 24 hours a week to 14. That drop is found within every
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
To advocates on both sides of the immigration debate, Miriam Torres is emblematic of the problems facing this country.
Torres, 20, is an illegal immigrant brought to the U.S. from Mexico when she was 9. Her family came using short-term tourist visas.
Those who argue for tougher enforcement of immigration laws say she is proof that the country needs to better secure its borders. She attended public school in Fulton County with taxpayers spending more than $65,000 to educate her, according to state figures. Some say that money was wasted because Torres can't legally work here. The money should have been spent on legal citizens, they said.
Others paint Torres as a victim of broken system. She graduated from Roswell High in 2008 with a 4.0 grade point average and would like to attend Georgia Tech to study biomedical engineering. Activists say the U.S. would benefit from educating and hiring smart, hard-working illegal immigrants. They cite students like Torres to explain why this country should pass federal legislation to make it affordable
The recession is finally taking its toll on national, state and local unionization rates, according to UCLA's annual report on organized labor.
Following an uptick last year, unionization rates fell between July 1, 2009, and June 30, 2010, by just more than half a percentage point in California and by a full percentage point in the five-county Los Angeles metropolitan area, researchers at UCLA's Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) found.
"Given the duration and depth of the recession, it was inevitable that union jobs would be hit," said Lauren Appelbaum, the report's lead author and director of research at the IRLE. "Jobs are continuing to disappear, and unionized jobs continue to disappear along with them."
"The State of the Unions in 2010: A Profile of Union Membership in Los Angeles, California and the Nation" publishes on Labor Day, Sept. 6.
Even with the losses, the Los Angeles metro area accounts for nearly half of the union members in California, which is the most heavily unionized state in the nation.
"In recent years, unions in Los Angeles have been at the head of the pack, and they've been having successes that unions are not having elsewhere," said IRLE director Christopher C. Tilly, a professor of urban planning at the UCLA School of Public Affairs. "That makes Los Angeles an important laboratory for unions and for labor-watchers."
The findings in the report are based on labor figures in the U.S. Current Population Survey, conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S Census Bureau. The UCLA report tracks year-to-year changes in unionization for the nation, California and the Los Angeles metropolitan area, which includes the counties of Los Angeles, Riverside, Orange, Ventura and San Bernardino.
Chinese school growsEducation: Nonprofit in Castaic goes from 20 to nearly 200 students in about a year |
DETROIT (AP) — The start of fall classes for the Detroit Public Schools is expected to reveal a much smaller district in terms of the number of students and buildings.
There also appears to be a sense of optimism — something missing since the district's poor money management, lack of internal controls and ballooning budget deficit became evident several years ago.
The first day of school is Tuesday, and this fall there is a real plan in place, said Reggie Williams, who is helping with student recruitment efforts as part of the nonprofit Detroit Parent Network.
"There is a new academic plan in Detroit. People are seeing more initiatives take off," Williams said.
The district has set an enrollment target of 77,314 students, which is more than a thousand fewer than attended Detroit schools last spring. The troubled district also faces a budget deficit of $363 million.
State-appointed emergency financial manager Robert Bobb closed 30 schools at end of the past academic year. Some of those schools were aging
By Brian Fitzpatrick
© 2010 WorldNetDaily
 Former Inspector General Gerald Walpin |
WASHINGTON – Fired Inspector General Gerald Walpin is asking that his lawsuit challenging his abrupt and apparently illegal dismissal by the Obama administration be reinstated – and he wants a new judge assigned to the case.
A Washington Times editorial published Sept. 1 suggests that District Judge Richard W. Roberts has not presided over Walpin's case with professional impartiality.
The editorial details extensive personal and professional ties between Roberts and Obama Attorney General Eric Holder, the boss of the Department of Justice lawyers defending the administration against Walpin's suit.
According to the Times, Roberts and Holder have been close personal friends for decades.
(Story continues below)
You say tomahto, we say tomato. Editorial Page Editor Linda Lantor Fandel, in her Aug. 1 column, says the Iowa State Education Association (ISEA) hasn't played an integral role in school reform. Anyone who has worked with us would disagree.
Reform is any movement, model, curriculum, challenge, directive or action that can bring about change for the better. We at the ISEA have been working toward change for the better since our inception, and we have invested much of our time and resources in reform efforts.
We believe reform includes helping our members improve their practices on the job. We work hard to
