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Pharmacy Giants Try to Spark Interest in the Field
Tweet Share on Facebook October 28, 2011 CommentTwo industry giants in the pharmaceutical business have teamed up to spark student interest in the field with a new initiative, Pharmacy is Right for Me.
The initiative, launched as a partnership between OptumRx (a pharmacy benefits management offshoot of United Health Group) and the American Pharmacists Association (APhA), consists mainly of an extensive website that includes a resource center for middle and high school students interested in becoming pharmacists.
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Teachers Use Cell Phones in the Classroom
Tweet Share on Facebook October 26, 2011 Comment (35)You won't find Willyn Webb telling her high school students to put away their cell phones, even though they are technically banned in her Colorado district. She's been using cell phones to augment her lessons at Delta County Opportunity School for years.
It all started when she forgot a stopwatch to time a student's speech, and another student whipped out a cell phone and used its built-in timer.
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280,000 Nationwide Teaching Jobs in Danger Following Senate Vote
Tweet Share on Facebook October 24, 2011 Comment (6)The Senate blocked a part of President Obama's jobs plan on Thursday that would have provided $30 billion to retain and hire new teachers. The Senate voted 50-50 to bring the bill to the Senate floor—10 votes shy of the 60 needed to stop a filibuster.
The defeated part of the legislation was designed to protect the jobs of some 280,000 K-12 educators who were in danger of being laid off and to hire new teachers, especially those teaching science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), according to a White House press release. The bill also included $5 billion to pay firefighters and police officers.
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Students Compete to Design Better Lunches
Tweet Share on Facebook October 21, 2011 CommentInstead of pizza and hotdogs, high school students in six U.S. cities are trying to serve up healthier lunch options to their classmates as part of a national cooking contest.
Students in public high schools with vocational culinary programs in Chicago; Denver; Jacksonville, Fla.; St. Louis; Washington, D.C.; and Winston-Salem, N.C., will compete to make the tastiest, healthiest lunch to serve their peers in the Cooking Up Change contest. The catch? The six-person teams can only spend about $1 per lunch and must order food from their school system's food supplier.
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New 'No Child' Legislation Faces Uphill Battle
Tweet Share on Facebook October 19, 2011 CommentAfter months of pleading from President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Senate Democrats and Republicans appear to be willing to work together to revise No Child Left Behind, the comprehensive public education law that was enacted in early 2002.
The administration has begun granting waivers to states to allow them to opt out of parts of the law that require students to reach certain benchmarks in math and reading. This summer, Duncan called the law a "slow-motion train wreck." But a bipartisan group of senators has agreed to start working on the bill, which might render the waivers unnecessary.
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Teens Take Studying Online
Tweet Share on Facebook October 17, 2011 Comment (2)The makeup of after-school study groups is changing as students increasingly turn to the Internet to study with people from all around the world.
"Traditionally, you've had to be in the same place as your study group," says Roy Gilbert, CEO of Grockit.com, an online social studying network with users in nearly 170 countries. "With Grockit, a student from Texas can study with a student from India."
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Students Want to Become Business Owners But Lack Training
Tweet Share on Facebook October 14, 2011 Comment (1)Young Americans have high aspirations, according to a new poll released Thursday by Gallup-HOPE. More than three quarters of students in grades 5 to 12 want to be their own boss, and nearly half plan to start their own business.
The polling company Gallup partnered with Operation Hope, an organization that encourages economic education, to create the poll, which measures student entrepreneurial excitement and motivation, as well as financial and entrepreneurial knowledge. Leaders from both organizations have framed these issues as key to America's economic future.
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California, Florida Communities Among Top 100 for Students
Tweet Share on Facebook October 12, 2011 CommentAmerica's Promise Alliance, a consortium dedicated to improving graduation rates nationwide, released a list of the 100 best communities for young people this morning. The list includes cities, towns, and counties that provide effective high school dropout prevention services for teenagers.
"These 100 outstanding communities refuse to let the economic and other challenges they face determine the fate of their youth," Marguerite Kondracke, the group's president, said in a statement. "Instead, they are working together to ensure that all their young people can reach their full potential."
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3 Education Innovators Win Funding for Their Projects
Tweet Share on Facebook October 10, 2011 CommentThree educational entrepreneurs won cash prizes from textbook publishing giant Houghton Mifflin Harcourt last week for their entries in the company's Global Education Challenge, a crowdsourced competition to promote educational innovation.
The worldwide competition was open to educational innovators over the age of 18. Michael Muldowney, the company's CFO, says the contest had broad guidelines to allow contestants' imaginations to run wild. Ideas and products to improve any aspect of education in any subject, both inside and outside the classroom, were considered, as long as they were adaptable to a large setting, were new ideas, and could produce measurable improvement in students.
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Media Giants Raise Awareness of Bullying
Tweet Share on Facebook October 7, 2011 Comment (6)Media companies such as CNN, Cartoon Network, Facebook, and Time Inc. have started an online anti-bullying campaign designed to raise awareness.
The companies launched the "Stop Bullying, Speak Up" Facebook page to give students and parents a place to voice their support for victims of bullying. The webpage also includes tips to resist bullying, a map of everyone who has "spoken up" against bullying, and a place to register a "bullying prevention group" in schools. CNN's Anderson Cooper is also hosting a town-hall style meeting with anti-bullying experts on his show, Anderson Cooper 360°, Oct. 9.
