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Recent High School Grads Regret Class Selections
Tweet Share on Facebook August 30, 2011 Comment (3)Recent high school graduates agree that college is important. According to a survey of 2010 high school graduates released by the College Board today, 90 percent said that their high school diploma was not enough to compete in today's society.
The organization, which administers the SAT and Advanced Placement (AP) exams, checked in with 1,507 students who graduated from high school in 2010 to see how they were doing a year later. Most of them are faring well; three quarters said they had a "good" or "great" 2010, and only 9 percent said they were dissatisfied with their high school experience.
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Frequent Facebook Users More Likely to Experiment With Drugs, Alcohol
Tweet Share on Facebook August 29, 2011 Comment (5)Teens who use social networking sites daily are up to five times more likely to smoke tobacco or marijuana or drink alcohol, according to a new study released Wednesday by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University.
The survey of 12-to-17-year-olds found that teens who visit Facebook or Myspace daily (70 percent of those surveyed) are five times more likely to use tobacco, three times likelier to use alcohol, and twice as likely to use marijuana compared to those who don't visit the sites on a typical day.
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States Push to Teach Personal Finance in Schools
Tweet Share on Facebook August 26, 2011 Comment (5)As the economy threatens to slip back into recession, more Americans are worrying about their personal finances. Decision makers in some states are placing a greater emphasis on personal finance education at the high school level—and some schools even require financial literacy classes for graduation.
Four states—Utah, Missouri, Tennessee, and Virginia—require high school students to take a one-semester course devoted to personal finance. In Virginia, this year's high school freshmen will be the first students who must take the class. Twenty other states require that personal finance instruction be incorporated into other subjects, such as math or home economics.
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Bullying Affects a Quarter of High Schools Students
Tweet Share on Facebook August 24, 2011 Comment (13)About a quarter of high school students were bullied at least once during the 2008-2009 school year, and about 7 percent were bullied online by other students, according to new data released Monday by the National Center for Education Statistics.
Alarmingly, 4.1 percent of students ages 12-18 who were bullied—approximately 289,000 students—reported bringing a gun, knife, or other weapon to school; 7.4 percent of students who were cyber bullied reported bringing a weapon to school.
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Americans Split on Key Educational Issues
Tweet Share on Facebook August 22, 2011 CommentThe American public is split on what careers talented high school students should pursue, the role of teachers unions, and the level of investment in classroom technology, according to the recently released Phi Delta Kappa / Gallup Poll on attitudes toward public schools. Of the 1,002 people polled, 62 percent have no children currently in school, 29 percent have children in public schools, and 5 percent send their children to private schools.
Half of Americans polled say talented math and science students should become scientists, while the other half say they should become science or math teachers. About three fourths of those polled say they would encourage friends to become teachers if they showed interest; a quarter would suggest a different field. About two thirds say they wouldn't mind if their child became a public school teacher.
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Technologies May Curb Online Cheating
Tweet Share on Facebook August 19, 2011 Comment (6)Nearly three quarters of American public high schools assess students online, but teachers have long had to trust that students were doing their own work. New technology from researchers at Pace University may help solve that problem.
According to a 2008 study by the National Center for Education Statistics, 71 percent of high schools give at least some online assessments to students. As virtual education becomes more popular, entrepreneurs and researchers are trying to help teachers identify whether students are cheating on online tests.
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A Quarter of ACT Takers 'College Ready' in Core Subjects
Tweet Share on Facebook August 17, 2011 Comment (1)A quarter of high school graduates who took the ACT college entrance exam met college readiness benchmarks in 2011 for all four subjects on the test, according to a report released today by ACT Inc.
Last year, 24 percent of students met the benchmarks for English, reading, mathematics, and science. In 2011, more than 1.62 million graduates—49 percent of all American high school graduates—took the exam, more than any other year. According to the report, 28 percent of students who took the exam didn't meet "college readiness" benchmarks in any subject. Another 15 percent of students met three benchmarks.
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Montana Reaches ‘No Child’ Compromise
Tweet Share on Facebook August 16, 2011 Comment (2)Yesterday, Montana reached an agreement with the U.S. Department of Education to lower the yearly targets for math and reading stipulated by No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the law that requires students in the public education system to be “proficient” in reading and math.
The deal will allow the state’s schools to receive federal education funding, which was in jeopardy because many were expected to miss benchmark targets.
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4 Tips to Keep Your Teen Safe on Facebook
Tweet Share on Facebook August 12, 2011 Comment (1)According to a 2010 Pew Internet Project study, nearly three fourths of American teenagers use social networking sites, with Facebook being the most popular by far. But some parents are still skeptical of the site; 55 percent of parents discourage their kids from making a social media profile, according to a recent study by Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that analyzes digital and traditional media.
But parents can set reasonable guidelines with their teens to keep them safe online, says Caroline Knorr, parenting editor of Common Sense Media. "Our position is that parents shouldn't fear social media," she says. "Kids are embracing these technologies. As a parent, it's part of your responsibility to engage with them." Here are some of her hints to help your child safely use Facebook.
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Promoting an Ethical School Culture
Tweet Share on Facebook August 10, 2011 CommentAs Atlanta and other school districts across the U.S. deal with the aftermath of cheating scandals, many school officials are looking for ways to clean things up.
State standardized tests in many areas of the country are surfacing with a higher-than-normal amount of erasures, suggesting teachers altered answers after students had turned in the exams.
