» Hard times for educators: According to a report released today spearheaded buy the White House Council of Economic Advisers, as well as the National Economic Council and Domestic Policy Council, the above figure represents the losses in educational jobs since June 2009. The report does originate from the White House team, and as such is expectedly supportive of the President’s proposal to stem this tide – a package of $25 billion to prevent further layoffs. The last few years have seen heavy cuts to public funding, largely pushed by conservative politicians during dire economic times, and thus public-sector jobs have dwindled in states and localities, driving up unemployment despite months of sustained (if underwhelming) private-sector job growth.
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In a Louisiana public school, female students who are suspected of being pregnant are told that they must take a pregnancy test. Under school policy, those who are pregnant or refuse to take the test are kicked out and forced to undergo home schooling.
Welcome to Delhi Charter School, in Delhi, Louisiana, a school of 600 students that does not believe its female students have a right to education free from discrimination. According to its Student Pregnancy Policy, the school has a right to not only force testing upon girls, but to send them to a physician of the school administration’s choice. A positive test result, or failure to take the test at all, means administrators can forbid a girl from taking classes and force her to pursue a course of home study if she wishes to continue her education with the school.
Charter school or not, this seems like a pretty open violation of what should be an obvious example of a person’s right to privacy.
Malte Spitz’s presentation, ”Your Phone Company Is Watching”, explores just how much can be extrapolated from the information collected by his cell phone carrier as a result of the EU’s Data Retention Directive. Working with ZEIT Online, Spitz used 35,830 lines of data to create a downloadable, interactive map chronicling his daily life during a six month period. “If you have access to this information, you can see what society is doing,” says Spitz, adding, “If you have access to this information you can control your society.” source
» The money will finance drastically increased salaries for Corps-selected teachers — with each set to receive a $20,000 pay raise — and would require participating teachers to commit to program participation for a multi-year period. Over $100 million in funding will be set aside for the new project, effective immediately, and the President will include another $1 billion in his budget proposition for fiscal 2013. ”I’m running to make sure that America has the best education system on earth, from pre-K all the way to post-graduate,” Obama told a crowd in San Antonio, continuing, “And that means hiring new teachers, especially in math and science.”
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Florida A&M President James Ammons has resigned the same day parents of a drum major who died after being hazed added the university to a wrongful death lawsuit.
Ammons resigned Wednesday in a letter to the university governing board.
Robert Champion died in November after being beaten by fellow band members during a hazing ritual aboard a bus parked outside an Orlando hotel following a football game against the school’s archrival.
Eleven FAMU band members face felony hazing charges, while two others face misdemeanor counts for alleged roles in the hazing. They have pleaded not guilty.
The expected outcome after a horrible series of events took place under the nose of Florida A&M’s administration.
Rates were set to double at the end of the month, but a huge package negotiated by Democrats and Republicans will retain the low(er) rates for another year (this only applies to federally-backed loans). The legislation passed the House and Senate today, and the White House has indicated that President Obama will sign it. So, yay! There’s a lot more policy in the bill, too, including extensions of federal highway programs and national flood insurance.
» A similar attack took place last month: Last month’s incident, which poisoned at least 150, contaminated the water at a school. This time, it was powder that contaminated the air. Officials believe Taliban officials opposed to the education of women are attempting to force the closure of as many schools as possible before the United States withdraws combat troops from the country in 2014. According to Afghan officials, more than 550 schools in Taliban-friendly parts of the country have already been forced to close in 11 different provinces.
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“It’s come to my attention that some of you have been…persuaded, perhaps, to vote for Summer Kennedy.” After his opponent recruited fellow Breaking Bad cast member Giancarlo Esposito for an endorsement video, Crossroads School for Arts & Sciences student Maxwell Ulin contacted Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul in hopes of locking up their support. Even if you don’t attend Crossroads, something tells us that this video will have you trying to figure out how you, too, can vote for Maxwell. (thanks Hypervocal) source
Coursera joins a raft of ambitious online projects aimed at making higher education more accessible and affordable. Many of these ventures, however, simply post entire lectures on the web, with no interactive component. Others strive to create brand-new universities from scratch.
Founders Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng say Coursera will be different because professors from top schools will teach under their university’s name and will adapt their most popular courses for the web, embedding assignments and exams into video lectures, answering questions from students on online forums — even, perhaps, hosting office hours via videoconference.
This sounds like worth keeping an eye on. It seems like it could go a long way towards disrupting the traditional educational model. In case you were wondering which schools, here you go: Stanford, Princeton, the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan. Not a bad list.
One way to remember them is to go to class. That’s what they were doing, and that’s what we live for.Virginia Tech Provost Mark G. McNamee • Commenting on the school’s decision to hold class today, and every April 16th going forward, only five years after the deadly on-campus shooting that claimed the lives of 32 people. Professors were given freedom to handle the day as they saw fit: Some observed a moment of silence at the beginning of class, while others canceled class out of respect. Classics instructor Trudy Harrington Becker chose to hold class under a century-old oak tree near the memorial for victims of the massacre. Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell is expected to speak during a candlelight vigil at the Drillfield for the victims this evening. source (via • follow)
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#@#$%!.tumblr.com
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I like to know I’m writing for a real flesh-and-blood reader who is excited by the words on the page. I’m sure children feel the same way.Harvard College Writing Program director Thomas Jehn • Fathoming the idea of automated essay grading — essentially, essays graded by robots. The idea is getting pitched in a contest by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which plans to offer $100,000 in prize money to any group of programmers that can figure out a way to automate the process of grading essays. We’re with Jehn: If students are spending all this time writing essays, it’s only right that the person on the other side of the coin is also a human being.
» Although that number has dropped from 2011 — by 7% according to the Department of Education — an increasing number of parents are taking out loans for their childrens’ pre-college education. Your Tuition Solution, a market leader, reports that loan requests are up 10% from 2011, with their average loan size up to $14,000. Roughly 20% of the new demand for loans comes from families making $150,000 or more, according to the National Association of Independent Schools. Loans repayment periods can range from 2-7 years, carry interest rates anywhere from 4-20%, and in some cases don’t have to be paid until the student graduates college. Of course, that route leaves parents paying for grades K-12 and college simultaneously.
Four high school students and an eighth-grader are working on a Battlestar Galactica-themed flight simulator for submission in the 2012 Maker Faire. Sam DeRose, Joseph DeRose, John Boyer, Alex Jacobson, and Sam Frank say their Viper replica is just the latest in a series of increasingly elaborate submissions to the Faire, all of which can be seen on The Viper Project”s official website. They’ve launched a Kickstarter campaign to help cover some of the projects’ costs, though they’re also fortunate enough to have a few corporate sponsors, and the boys have just over fifty days to pull it off. source
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