Posted by VicPlough on Apr 22, 2012 in
Education Story By: by Steve Mullis
Since its launch in 2010 by columnist Dan Savage, the It Gets Better campaign has grown into an Internet-wide support net for gay and lesbian teenagers. Now, students from a strict Mormon college have launched a video as part of that campaign to reassure gay and lesbian youth who might be struggling with their faith and sexual orientation.
According to the AP, the video posted by 22 students at Brigham Young University is the first of its kind with ties to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The school forbids gay sex and marriage, and the students could face excommunication from the church and expulsion at BYU.
It was only five years ago, in 2007, that students were allowed to talk about their sexual orientation without risk of expulsion under the school’s honor code.
Currently, the honor code reads:
One’s stated same-gender attraction is not an Honor Code issue. However, the Honor Code requires all members of the university community to manifest a strict commitment to the law of chastity. Homosexual behavior is inappropriate and violates the Honor Code. Homosexual behavior includes not only sexual relations between members of the same sex, but all forms of physical intimacy that give expression to homosexual feelings.
“Students who uphold the honor code are welcome as school members of the campus community,” BYU spokeswoman Carri Jenkins told the AP.
In 2010, the school lifted the ban on advocacy of homosexuality, allowing for the creation of the campus advocacy group Understanding Same-Gender Attraction, which produced the video.
Gay activists are celebrating the video as the latest sign that the church is becoming more open to their community.
Posted by VicPlough on Apr 15, 2012 in
Education Story By: by Caitlin Esch
A student at Allen Elementary fills out a worksheet where music notes are converted into fractions.
San Francisco State University researcher Susan Courey designed the curriculum with Balogh in 2007, because as a former third-grade teacher, she knows how tricky fractions can be.
“If you say, what’s bigger one-eighth or one-fourth, they’ll say one-eighth because eight is bigger than four,” Courey says. It’s all about visualization.
“But our students â because of the notes â know that all those little tiny eighth notes are a lot smaller than a whole note or a half note,” Courey says.
In this class, more than half the students are English-language learners. Classroom teacher Gina Grites says Academic Music has especially helped her students, such as a little girl who volunteers to solve a problem, even though she barely speaks English.
“She knew that it was four counts and put it into a fraction,” Grites says. “Just to have her get up and present in front of a class is a really big deal, and she raised her hand and wanted to, so I’m seeing a lot of these kids open up and want to try it, instead of hiding behind the desk and saying, ‘Please don’t call on me.’ “
A recent study found that students who went through the program tested better on fractions. The average score of the Academic Music students was nearly double that of students in the regular math class. Courey says even low-performing students did better.
“That’s what I, as a classroom teacher, want,” she says. “I want to know that those students who typically are the underachievers are benefiting from the instruction that I’m providing.”
In a less formal study, Allen Elementary School teachers compared their kids’ math scores with third-graders in other district schools. Again, Allen students performed better.
Back in the classroom, 9-year-old Eric Bogren says he’d never played an instrument before Academic Music.
“It’s really easy when it’s music, but it’s harder to do it when you’re doing math,” Eric says. For Eric, thinking of fractions as music notes, helps.
The curriculum designers hope to eventually make the program available for any third-grade teacher to use in the classroom.
Posted by VicPlough on Apr 15, 2012 in
Education Story By: by David Kestenbaum
Before the financial crisis, five school districts in Wisconsin borrowed $200 million and invested in some very complicated financial instruments tied to real estate. They quickly became worthless. The school districts sued, claiming they were misled about the risk they were taking.
Posted by VicPlough on Apr 8, 2012 in
Education Story By: by Sarah Gonzalez
Michael M. Krop Senior High School students chant during a rally demanding justice for Trayvon Martin, on Friday.
Students walked out of more than 30 Miami schools on Friday, some chanting “Justice for Trayvon,” in a sign of solidarity with the 17-year-old black student who was killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer last month in Sanford, Fla.
Protesters numbered more than 1,000 at some schools, others fewer than 100. Some teachers and principals gave their tacit approval.
The first walkout was at Carol City High School, where Trayvon Martin was a student last year. Hundreds of his old schoolmates walked out in the middle of the school day.
Nearly a month has passed since George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon, who was unarmed. But it wasn’t until this week that Trayvon’s high school said anything about his death to his fellow students.
That got Miami students talking and organizing.
Alana Coreus, a 12th-grader, says she won’t mind if she gets punished for walking out of class.
“Everyone feels like what they’re doing is right,” she says, “because everyone is walking around with their Skittles, their hoodies, and they feel like they’re making a stand.”
At the time of his death, Trayvon was carrying a bag of Skittles and wore the hood of his jacket over his head.
Miami-Dade County Public Schools superintendent Alberto Carvalho says each school will have to decide for itself whether to discipline students.
“I think we have demonstrated passion and compassion, understanding,” he says. “We don’t decree discipline from downtown.”
The superintendent also says Trayvon’s parent urged students to stay in class. Trayvon’s former classmates, including Mercury Duncan, are honoring that request.
“Walking out is not really doing anything, it’s not going to bring him back, not making his mom feel any way because she asked us not to walk out,” he says, “and what we’re doing, it could kind of comfort her.”
Students at the school are writing letters to Trayvon and his family, creating what they call a “chain of life” around the school campus.
According to the school district, Trayvon’s death was not initially announced to his classmates because his parents asked for privacy. Internal school emails show the principal asked teachers to refrain from lengthy conversations about Trayvon.
Ashley Aristide says her teacher avoided the subject when it came up in history class.
“I am pretty sure the school just really doesn’t want to have that much commotion in the school because then learning in that environment would be pretty hard,” she says.
Eventually, the school decided to do something. The principal called for a moment of silence more than three weeks after Trayvon’s death.
Frustrated by the delay, some students took to social media and began organizing the walkouts.
Their online activism continues. On Monday, Trayvon’s former classmates are planning to dress in black to mark the month that has passed since his death.
This story is part of the StateImpact Florida project. StateImpact is a collaboration between NPR and member stations examining the effect of state policy on people’s lives.
Posted by VicPlough on Feb 29, 2012 in
Education Story By: by Doug Tribou
Harvard University forward Kyle Casey in an NCAA game against Princeton on Saturday. Casey says financial aid from Harvard makes the school more attractive to student athletes.
- Pete Thamel, New York Times college-sports reporter
“A lot of kids,” Casey says, “not just in basketball, but just in general with sports, feel like, ‘If I can go to a pretty good school and go for free, I’d rather do that than go to a very good school, and have to pay and put that burden on my parents.’ “
Casey says knowing that attending college won’t leave you in debt makes Harvard and other Ivy League schools much more attractive.
Pete Thamel, who covers college basketball for The New York Times, says the effect of the Ivy League’s efforts is noticeable.
“The recruiting process in the Ivy League has always been competitive, just because there’s always been a finite number of kids who have the academic qualifications and who are good enough to play Division I basketball,” Thamel says. “I think we’ve seen a shift in the past four or five years of the caliber of players in the Ivy League. The Ivy League is as good as it’s been in this generation.”
Money Just One Recruiting Tool
Ivy League Executive Director Robin Harris says no-loan aid has broadened the pool of potential recruits, but that national success is nothing new for the league â including the Cornell men’s Sweet Sixteen berth in the 2010 NCAA basketball tournament.
“But we’ve been competitive for longer than that,” Harris says. “And so even if you look at the Cornell team, I don’t know if very many â if any â of those players would have benefited from the changes in the financial aid policy. Our lacrosse teams have long been very competitive nationally; ice hockey wrestling, soccer.”
Sports Illustrated reporter Pablo Torre, a Harvard alumnus, says graduates playing in the NBA, NFL and other pro leagues provide a critical boost to Ivy recruiting. But in the end, he says, academics will always be the schools’ best closing argument for attracting talent.
Ivy League schools will never have the resources that schools like Ohio State and the University of Michigan have, “in terms of all the accouterments that are part and parcel with a big-time program,” Torre says. “But they’re going to try to make up for it on the back end when they say, ‘Even if you don’t make it, you’re going to have this degree â and that’s pretty useful.’ “
Right now, the Harvard players are focused on their more immediate future. Ivy League degrees can open a lot of doors, but so can conference victories â and the team that eventually finishes first in the Ivy League gets an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
Posted by VicPlough on Feb 26, 2012 in
Education Story By: by NPR Staff
On Jan. 1, the Missouri State School Board revoked the Kansas City public school district’s accreditation. Now parents have a hard choice to make: leave or keep their children at a failed school?
- Stephen Green, interim Kansas City school superintendent
- Ximena Pecina, high school sophomore
“We think there’s some things here that we should fight for,” Adriana says. “Because if we all run away, we’ll never fix the problems.”
But one of the Pecina kids, high school sophomore Ximena, is more transparent about her worries. She says she has had to say goodbye to friends.
“Many students are leaving. There’s kids saying, ‘Oh, well, I’m going to this private school. I’m going ref. I’m actually moving out of this state; I’m going to Kansas,’ ” she says. “And it’s tragic.”
She wonders sometimes why her family is sticking with the public schools.
“I have cousins and a lot of friends that aren’t part of the district. I get jealous at times. I get asked a lot, ‘Well doesn’t your school do that? Our schools do that.’ And I get asked questions that just make me feel really sad. And they make me feel like I’m part of a school that doesn’t really have anything. Like, I feel really poor.”