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Fewer Students Attend Private Schools
Tweet Share on Facebook May 30, 2011 CommentThe number of pre-K through 12th grade students enrolled in private schools—especially Catholic institutions—has sharply declined over the past decade, according to a new government report released May 26.
Private school enrollment from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade dropped 12.7 percent between the 2001-02 and 2009-10 school years, according to the Congressionally mandated annual report "Condition of Education." In the fall of 2001, 6.3 million students were enrolled in private schools; in 2009, just 5.5 million attended private schools.
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America's Most Popular Online Teacher
Tweet Share on Facebook May 27, 2011 Comment (6)America's most popular teacher doesn't work at Harvard University or a fancy prep school. In fact, he doesn't work in a school at all, but his lessons have been viewed more than 56 million times. Salman Khan, a former hedge fund manager, is the founder of Khan Academy, a free online learning platform with a library of more than 2,300 videos covering everything from basic algebra and differential equations to the Vietnam War.
In 2004, Khan's younger cousin in New Orleans, Nadia, was having trouble in her math class. Khan, an MIT graduate who was working in New York City, began tutoring Nadia over Yahoo! Messenger. Soon, more relatives began asking for help, so he started making YouTube videos explaining different topics, which they could view when they had time. Eventually, other people discovered his videos and thought they were useful.
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U.S. Can Learn From Other Countries' Education Systems
Tweet Share on Facebook May 25, 2011 Comment (13)It's time for America to start following other countries' leads when it comes to education, according to a new report by the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE), an organization that researches education systems around the world. The group held a conference Tuesday in Washington, D.C. to release the report, which was attended by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, politicians, and school leaders.
Education achievement in the U.S. has fallen to the middle of the pack among developed nations, according to the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) report, which ranked the knowledge of 15-year-olds in 70 countries. The U.S. ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science, and 25th in mathematics.
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Houghton Mifflin to Crowdsource Ideas
Tweet Share on Facebook May 23, 2011 CommentHoughton Mifflin Harcourt, one of the world's largest textbook manufacturers, is launching a contest that it hopes will improve student achievement and result in new products.
The company is asking anyone over 18 to submit ideas for improving the way students learn. Contestants only need to write a few paragraphs on an online form describing a problem with education and a way they think it could be solved. The ideas are then posted to a message board where they can be discussed and improved upon. The contest started May 18 and will run through the end of July. A panel of judges that includes prominent education thought leaders, policymakers, and business executives will choose several winners in September, who will split $250,000 in cash and prizes.
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Rethinking Summer School
Tweet Share on Facebook May 20, 2011 Comment (1)Summer is just a few weeks away—but most high school students won't spend it learning. According to a 2010 study by the Wallace Foundation, a national education nonprofit, just 25 percent of school-age children participate in a summer learning program. I spoke with Ron Fairchild, an education consultant and former director of the Johns Hopkins University Center of Summer Learning (now known independently as the National Summer Learning Association), about the problems students face over the summer and what constitutes a good summer learning program.
Fairchild will speak to youth leaders, politicians, and business owners about the importance of summer learning programs at the Boys & Girls Clubs of America National Conference in New Orleans this weekend. The organization offers a number of free, community-based summer learning programs for students of all ages.
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More States Consider 4-Day Weeks
Tweet Share on Facebook May 19, 2011 Comment (3)With states looking to balance budgets, more school districts are considering switching to four-day school weeks.
About one fourth of South Dakota's school districts will operate four-day weeks next fall. In California, Gov. Jerry Brown said the 180-day school year could be cut by up to five weeks.
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Texas School Wins World’s Largest Rocket Contest
Tweet Share on Facebook May 18, 2011 CommentA team from Rockwall-Heath High School in Heath, Texas, a town 25 miles outside of Dallas, won a national high school rocket-building competition Saturday. Team members split $60,000 in cash and scholarships with other top 10 finalists.
At the Team America Rocketry Challenge, students were tasked with building a 2.2 pound (or lighter) rocket that would reach an altitude of exactly 750 feet and return an egg safely back to earth. The Rockwall team launched their first rocket to a height of 736 feet—"a pretty mediocre launch," according to team captain John Easum. But it was good enough to get the team into the second round, where they launched their rocket to a near-perfect 752 feet, eking out Lambert High School in Suwanee, Ga., and Harmony Magnet Academy in Strathmore, Calif., which tied for second place.
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Tony Bennett, Gavin DeGraw Lobby Congress to Save School Music
Tweet Share on Facebook May 17, 2011 Comment (2)High-profile recording artists Tony Bennett, Gavin DeGraw, and former New York Yankees star and Latin jazz guitarist Bernie Williams spoke at a reception at the U.S. Capitol last week to lobby Congress to support public school music programs.
According to a recent study by the National Center for Education Statistics, a government organization, more than 90 percent of American public high schools offer music classes, but more than 80 percent of those classes were offered two times a week or fewer. Music classes are offered at 94 percent of public elementary schools.
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Intel Fair Winners Could Cut Price of Cancer Treatment
Tweet Share on Facebook May 16, 2011 CommentThe winners of the Intel Science and Engineering Fair could make cancer treatment attainable for poverty-stricken people.
A pair of seniors from Lafayette, Calif. developed a way to reduce the cost of fighting cancer to as little as 60 cents per treatment. Matthew Feddersen and Blake Marggraff, whose project is called "Treatment of Simulated Cancer Cells with Compton Scattering-Produced Secondary Radiation," won the $75,000 Gordon Moor Award for the best overall project at the fair.
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National Education Association to Endorse Obama
Tweet Share on Facebook May 13, 2011 CommentThe president of the National Education Association, the country's largest teachers' union, has asked members to endorse President Obama's re-election campaign.
With more than 3.2 million members, many of them public school teachers and employees, the NEA is America's largest union. Teachers' unions have been embroiled in battles with lawmakers in states such as Wisconsin and Ohio over collective bargaining rights, tenure, and merit-pay laws as states try to slash budgets.
