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How to Identify a High School Dropout Factory
Tweet Share on Facebook November 30, 2011 Comment (4)Many of America's high school dropouts attend schools that graduate fewer than 60 percent of their students. Although the number of these "dropout factories" has decreased from 2,007 in 2002 to 1,634 in 2009, according to a March 2011 report by America's Promise Alliance, thousands of students still fail to graduate from these high schools.
As one would expect, problems run rampant at these schools, according to Nelson Reidar, a teacher who spent the 2010-2011 school year training educators in classroom management skills at a Southern California high school that graduated just 30 percent of its students this year. What he saw shocked him so much that he wrote a book called Education Malpractice. Reidar's publisher decided to not publish the name of his school.
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Do Multiple Choice Questions Pass the Test?
Tweet Share on Facebook November 28, 2011 Comment (4)Use a No. 2 pencil, fill out each circle completely, and don't make any stray marks—these are rules every child learns when taking standardized tests that are largely based on multiple choice. But are multiple choice exams the best way to test students' knowledge?
Experts say they are—sort of.
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High School-College Hybrid Grooms Students for Jobs
Tweet Share on Facebook November 23, 2011 Comment (1)At a time when more than a quarter of students don't graduate from high school, the last thing you'd expect is for a city to make it harder to get a degree. But a new technology-focused, six-year high school in New York City is asking students to do just that in return for a more secure job outlook.
When students finally do graduate from Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-Tech), they'll leave with a high school diploma, an associate degree in computer science, and potential job opportunities already lined up.
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GED Exam to Get Facelift in 2014
Tweet Share on Facebook November 21, 2011 Comment (1)For years, the General Educational Development (GED) test helped provide adults who dropped out of high school with the equivalent of a high school diploma. Now, the American Council on Education (ACE), the developer of the test, is setting its sights on a loftier goal: higher education.
Starting in 2014, the organization, which is made up of about 1,800 degree-granting colleges, will make changes to the test with the goal of encouraging adults to continue studying for an associate's or bachelor's degree.
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States Consider Mandating Sex Abuse Reporting After Penn State Scandal
Tweet Share on Facebook November 18, 2011 Comment (2)After a string of Penn State University officials failed to inform law enforcement about former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky's alleged sexual abuse of children, several states are looking at their "mandatory reporting" laws that require certain professionals to report child abuse to police.
Ousted head football coach Joe Paterno and assistant coach Mike McQueary are in the clear, legally, because Pennsylvania law does not require athletic coaches to report knowledge of child abuse, although the state requires teachers, clergy members, doctors, social workers, and other related professionals to inform police of child abuse.
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Counselors Say Schools' Missions are Misguided
Tweet Share on Facebook November 16, 2011 Comment (2)Middle and high school guidance counselors say they aren't utilized effectively in their schools, according to a survey released yesterday by the College Board, the nonprofit organization behind Advanced Placement courses and the SAT college entrance exam.
The "2011 National Survey of School Counselors," which included 1,327 middle school and 3,981 high school counselors, says that guidance counselors are among the most "highly valuable" professionals working in education, but that they are among the "least strategically deployed." The survey is believed to be the largest ever of its kind.
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Idaho Becomes Fourth State to Require Online Classes
Tweet Share on Facebook November 14, 2011 Comment (2)Students in Idaho will soon have to take two online classes in order to graduate from high school, starting with next year's freshmen.
The state joins Alabama, Florida, and Michigan as the only states to require online classes for graduation, but Idaho will be the first to require two classes. The other three states currently require only one online class for graduation.
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Boys & Girls Clubs Provide Support for Military Children
Tweet Share on Facebook November 11, 2011 Comment (1)By the end of the year, some 40,000 American troops will return from Iraq as the United States pulls out of the war. While the homecoming will reunite families, students and parents often face an adjustment period.
An April study by the global think tank RAND Corp. found that students who had at least one parent deployed between 2002 and 2008 scored lower on reading tests than students who had both parents at home.
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Survey: Nearly Half of Students Sexually Harassed in School
Tweet Share on Facebook November 9, 2011 Comment (1)Forty-eight percent of surveyed middle and high school students said they were sexually harassed at least once, typically by their peers, during the 2010-2011 school year, according to a report released Monday by the American Association of University Women (AAUW), a group that advocates for gender equality in schools.
Girls were more likely to experience harassment (defined broadly as "unwelcome sexual behavior that takes place in person or electronically") than boys. Fifty-six percent of girls said they were sexually harassed at least once in the past school year, compared to 40 percent of boys. Forty-four percent of students were harassed in person, while 30 percent of students said they were harassed digitally, either through Facebook, text messaging, or E-mail.
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Teachers Use Hip Hop to Engage Students
Tweet Share on Facebook November 7, 2011 Comment (14)Before the Great Depression, robber barons such as Andrew Carnegie and J.P. Morgan had the same troubles as the late rapper Biggie Smalls, Kanene Holder tells her students.
"More money can cause more problems," says Holder, a staff member at Urban Arts Partnership, a nonprofit group that promotes arts-integrated education. She's been using hip hop music to explain tough concepts to her classes for the past six years. "We talk about how before the Great Depression, the robber barons didn't see problems coming."
