by Lee Lawrence, CorrespondentNASHVILLE, TENN.; AND NEW YORK — To Samson Boyd, a father in Nashville, Tenn., simple addition used to be a straightforward proposition: Four plus four equals eight. But in today’s era of newfangled math, kids are taught various ways to arrive at the right answer.Read the rest of the story at The Christian Science Monitor.
NPR StaffThis weekend, the Class of 2015 graduated from Howard University, a historically black college located about a mile from NPR’s headquarters. The new graduates include two of the students who have spent the last semester talking with NPR’sWeekend Edition about their college experience.Leighton Watson and Keven Peterman are still kind of in denial.Read the rest of the story and hear the interviews at NPR.
by Motoko RichMENOMONEE FALLS, Wis. — In this small suburb outside Milwaukee, no one in the Menomonee Falls School District escapes the rigorous demands of data.Custodians monitor dirt under bathroom sinks, while the high school cafeteria supervisor tracks parent and student surveys of lunchroom food preferences. Administrators record monthly tallies of student disciplinary actions, and teachers post scatter plot diagrams of quiz scores on classroom walls. Even kindergartners use brightly colored dots on charts to show how many letters or short words they can recognize.Read the rest of the story at The New York Times.
by Doug BoltonNicky Morgan has been reappointed as Education Secretary in David Cameron’s post-election cabinet reshuffle.Morgan, who took over from the unpopular Michael Gove in July, dramatically increased her majority in election and has been rewarded with the same brief as before.The reappointment has proved controversial with some teachers, as Morgan, like her predecessor Gove, has no teaching experience.Read the rest of the story at The Independent.
by Kimberly Hefling, AP Education WriterWASHINGTON (AP) — ACT test takers take note: The No. 2 pencil is losing its cachet. Greater numbers of high school students will be able to take the college entrance exam on a computer next year.The ACT announced Friday that computer-based testing will be available next year in the 18 states and additional districts that require students, typically juniors, to take the ACT during the school day. About 1 million students could be affected.Read the rest of the story at U.S. News and World Report.
Study finds some study areas pay more than others, with engineering earnings triple those for educationby Melissa KornWant to make a good living? Go to college. Just be careful what you major in.On average, college graduates earn about $1 million more in their lifetimes than do adults who only completed high school. But long-term earnings prospects vary widely by subject, and the income differentials across certain majors dwarf those between graduates and non-graduates, according to a new report from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce based on an analysis of Census Bureau data.Read the rest of the story at The Wall Street Journal.
Almost every state has been sued for not investing enough in education, especially in poorer districts. But localities may be more to blame.by Mary Ellen McIntireWhat’s the right amount to spend on schools to get the best outcomes?The average spending per student in school districts around the country decreased in 2011 — the latest year that data is available — and began years of declining expenditures, according to an April report on K-12 funding by State Policy Reports.Read the rest of the story on Governing.
by Jennifer GreenOver the last two weeks, teachers in Baltimore have worked tirelessly to support their students, their schools and their community. I have two words for them: thank you.Ashley Smith, a fourth grade teacher at Lakeland Elementary/Middle School in Southwest Baltimore, used her classroom as a safe harbor where her students could openly express their reactions to the Baltimore riots through their writing. “I knew the students would be coming into class… with a lot of questions about what had taken place,” she told ABC News. Ashley relied on her skills as an educator to encourage an open, healthy dialogue among her students. She not only gave them a space to share their feelings by writing essays, but also established an open communication channel between peers. It was through this channel that her students’ discussed the power of peaceful protests and the tragedies that often result from violent uprisings.Read the rest of the story on the Huffington Post.
by Eryn Brown and Teresa WatanabeSince state laws made it harder for California elementary school kids to get their hands on sugary drinks and junk food snacks on campus, researchers found, students’ risk of becoming overweight or obese fell slightly — but mostly if they came from higher-income neighborhoods.Examining body mass index measurements of 2,700,880 fifth-graders in the state over 10 years, researchers found that students in those neighborhoods saw their odds of exceeding a healthy weight fall by about 1% a year. For all other students, the trends remained essentially flat.Read the rest of the story on the L.A. Times.
