Education: The civil rights issue that matters most. Hold a March for Smarts, little children, and see who shows up for that. Look at all the dignitaries gathered for Sunday’s dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the Mall. Hear them sing: “We Shall Overcome.” But if you believe overcoming should be more than a song, little children, better to march over to the Martin Luther King Jr. Speaking at the memorial dedication, President Obama again mentioned “fixing schools so that every child gets a world-class education.” The nation’s 105 historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) — which produce most of the nation’s black doctors, lawyers and scientists — award about 36,000 undergraduate degrees each year. But there’s a catch. “Many college freshmen at HBCUs are nowhere near college-ready when they arrive on campus,” Deputy Education Secretary Tony Miller said at an HBCU conference last year.
So where are the men? But at Sunday’s ceremony, Obama asked us to understand that “change does not come quick.” March on anyway. More Tax Breaks For Education.
Alternative white paper: it's your turn to ask the academics. Over the weekend, Ed Miliband said that Labour would cap tuition fees at £6,000 instead of £9,000 – quite a turn-up for the books, since he opposed the hike in fees last year. "This is a step towards a graduate tax," a Labour source told the Guardian's Nicholas Watt. "We would like to go further, but we can only do what is affordable. " "Affordable" is not a word you'll even find in a new document, an "alternative white paper", published today by academics in fierce opposition to government (and Labour) policy.
The report, In Defence of Public Higher Education, written and endorsed by hundreds of academics, focuses not on fees and caps, but on the "public good" of higher education, what it gives to society as well as to individual students. The government's policies are based on ideology rather than financial necessity, they argue, and will make no lasting savings. They also say a new debate is urgent, following the August riots. Are the dons living in cloud cuckoo land? Alternative white paper: In defence of public higher education. Higher education white paper is provoking a winter of discontent. Hundreds of academics have signed a document, published today, that warns of dire consequences should the government's white paper on higher education become law.
The document, In Defence of Public Higher Education, endorsed by a wide range of prominent academics, including Stefan Collini, of Cambridge University, and Howard Hotson, of Oxford, offers an alternative to the government's vision for the sector in the form of nine propositions about higher education's value to society. Drawing on recent research, it also argues that the changes proposed are based on ideology rather than financial necessity, and will make no lasting savings. Campaigners hope it will lead to an autumn of debate and protest over the white paper's proposals, which are due to come into effect next year.
It suggests that this focus on students as consumers attacks the very values the prime minister believes would reverse the "moral decline" blamed for the recent riots. Pay gap between graduates and those without degrees widens with age. The earnings gap between graduates and their peers without a degree widens as they get older, with some non-graduates actually sliding down the pay scale as time passes, research has shown. The research followed the peak earnings of two groups born in 1958 and 1970 as they aged from 30 to their early 40s, during the 1990s and the 2000s, and considered what factors affected their chances of moving up or down the pay scale. Around 10,000 people were included in the study. The report, by the Resolution Foundation, found that those with degrees were more likely to see their earnings rise as they got older, while those with just GCSEs or A-levels were more likely to see their pay fall. The difference was even more accentuated during the 2000s compared with the 1990s.
The foundation found that at present fewer than one in five adults in low- to middle-income households holds a degree, compared to two in five of higher earners. Universities should make lower offers to poorer students, exam board urges. St George's medical school at the University of London offers results of BBC rather than AAB to students from poorer-performing schools. Photograph: Thomas Barwick/Getty Images Universities should make it easier to admit A-level students from poorly performing schools, according to one of the country's biggest exam boards.
Dr Neil Stringer of the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA), said research suggested students from less privileged schools did just as well at university as those from "more favourable circumstances". A report authored by Stringer, the senior research associate at AQA's centre for education research and policy, cited a medical school at the University of London that offers lower A-level grades to pupils from poorer schools.
St George's offers results of BBC rather than AAB to students who perform 60% better than the average for their school. Claire Ellis from AQA said the paper was "very much a thought piece" at this stage. Reality check: Will free schools deprive other schools of funding? 8.40am: The Conservatives' promised schools revolution begins today with the opening of 24 free schools, a new brand of ultra independent state-funded school that will have more freedom than both traditional comprehensives and academies. They are independent of their local authorities and will not be expected to subscribe to the full national curriculum and have more flexibility over who they employ as teachers. Free schools are the Tories' evolution of Labour's academy programme.
Nick Clegg will today give a speech in which he will claim that he has won a battle within the coalition to curb some of the most controversial elements of the programme, securing a guarantee from Gove that they will not be allowed to make a profit, unlike the Swedish and American schools they are modelled on, and that they will be focussed in the poorest areas of the country or those that are short of school places. 10.46am: The Department for Education has a guide to free schools' funding. Academies Sweden. World university rankings show that good higher education can be a bargain. Students looking for any way to avoid £9,000 tuition fees and still attend a top-flight university could do worse than look at Trinity College, Dublin.
The 400-year-old institution, ideally located to enjoy the "craic" of the fair city's nightlife, is ranked 65th in the world – just behind the London School of Economics – in the latest league table of the world's top universities, published yesterday. But it does not charge tuition fees to students from the UK. QS, the international career and education network that compiled the latest world rankings, has for the first time compared tuition costs for all 600 universities.
And in the top 200, many have fees below England's top whack of £9,000 a year. So what are the realistic options for UK students willing to pack their trunk to save on the debts? Dutch institutions are worth a look. For those happy to go further afield, Hong Kong has three universities in the top 50, all offering a good range of degrees taught in English. Prisoners need real education, not just vocational training | Society.
Many prisoners expect that the jobs on offer to them on release will be unpleasant and badly paid. Photograph: Jochen Tack /Alamy We were talking about warfare, how it seems to transform individuals, how notions of morality and identity are revealed as malleable, when there was a knock on the door. One of the training staff came in and said: "OK if we clean the room? " Of course it was, and so he beckoned in the guy he was training. This guy came in and stood there, looking a bit puzzled; he had a big vacuum cleaner in his two hands. They got the thing plugged in and after a few words the guy cleaned the bit of carpet near the door. "You reckon he was taking the piss?
" "Course he was," said Ian. Ian and Casey are workaholics. Why would they want a job at all? Not many people are tempted by work and yet education is fading away in favour of employability. Formerly Homeless Student Starts Nonprofit to Help His Peers Get to College. Nineteen-year-old New York City student Orayne Williams knows a lot about how to avoid becoming a statistic. Last year Williams, who was abandoned by his family when he was 12 and spent his teen years living in homeless shelters, managed to graduate from high school with honors and enrolled at Manhattanville College on a full scholarship. His campus dormitory was his first non-shelter home in years.
His achievements are so inspiring that the New York Daily News made him their success story of 2010 and their readers generously donated $15,000 to him. But Williams is determined to not be a happy exception. Last November, he founded a new nonprofit, the Progressive People Movement, Inc, which hopes to help at-risk "youth break free from the cycles of homelessness, incarceration, poverty and failure. " Williams hopes to raise at least $30,000 to cover the cost of materials for tutoring and counseling. "If I can do it, they can do it," he says. photo via Progressive People Movement. For Students: The Ultimate Research Tool – Education Series.
Whether you’re writing a paper or studying for a test, odds are you spend more time gathering the pieces than actually working. Getting all of your notes together, hunting for quotes, and tracking down bibliographical information takes at least as long, if not longer, as writing the paper itself. In a group situation, sharing research and collaborating on the production of one document is even more difficult without the proper tools. Enter Evernote. For students, it’s an invaluable way to organize research and streamline the collaboration process.
Here are some examples of how Evernote simplifies the student research process. Organizing in Evernote The first step in any research project is, well, the research. Here’s an example of a way to organize your research: Make a notebook for every project (for example: “Civil War Thesis”). Web Clipping Scrolling through Web pages over and over to find the one paragraph or quote you want to reference is always excruciatingly time-consuming. What is Special Education and who can cope with the Challenge? The past decade has seen increased emphasis on what is special education, the diagnosis and techniques a special education teacher can use to improve the learning capacity of the learner. The term special education covers a broad range of different learning deficiencies, ranging from learning problems to physical control among more. Having worked in the sector for the past 5 years, I have come by many different situations that have placed me under pressure but working in collaboration with other experts in the field I have learned to make the right decision when confronted with a situation that is challenging.
The points below are meant to provide awareness and solutions to the parents and teachers concerning some difficulties that they may be facing with children that require special education. Before taking up this profession consider the difficulties you may be facing in the near future. Hard Choices: Do Libraries Really Destroy Books? : Monkey See. iStockphoto.com Yesterday, an Australian blogger named S Peter Davis wrote a piece for Cracked (the surprisingly interesting online offshoot of the old comedy print magazine) called "6 Reasons We're In Another 'Book-Burning' Period In History.
" It's not about the destruction of books based on content or community objections; it's about the destruction of books because libraries (and sometimes bookstores) don't know what to do with them, or don't know what to do with them that makes economic sense. The situation as Davis describes it is basically this: Libraries have a certain amount of space and a certain amount of money. The careful culling of books is painstaking work. Perhaps the pithiest part of the discussion is where he says this: Imagine you're the manager of a library, and some accountant tells you that you need to get rid of 100,000 books, and do it in a week.
You really have two options. That's sobering stuff. But it's tough. But yes, sometimes, books are destroyed. Maybe so. Why Education Without Creativity Isn't Enough. Adam McKay Gets Serious, Signs On To Produce Docu About Education System. The Definition of Education. Receiving education in America once meant a chance to escape the ramifications of a limited knowledge. It once provided children a chance to better themselves and move beyond the implications of imprudence that could be forced upon their impressionable minds through those who essentially are in the same position as they are.
It’s through education did America once ensure that children learned so they wouldn’t become incompetent thus leading them to become productive citizens of a dynamic land of opportunity. Today, the definition of education has been fundamentally altered from the definition that it held 20 years ago. The definition of education today is intertwined with the definitions of government, big pharmaceutical companies, special interest, and politically based decisions. In order to understand the definition of education today one must understand educations own definitions that puts labels on everything and everyone.
Bring on the Learning Revolution! Today’s American classrooms appear oddly similar to the classrooms at the turn of the 20th century. Rows of wooden desks, chalkboards, and a teacher commanding the room, clog the space. Folks, this is your great-great-great-great grandfather’s classroom. The American education system sucks. We currently educate under a 19th century model of education, shaped in the factory-age, stressing conformity and standardization. By and large, it’s really pathetic. Tom Peters, prominent education speaker, put it best: “We nail facts into students’ heads and there’s nothing wrong with it if the goal is to employ someone for 40 years in a Ford Motor Company Model A factory. The deal is park your brains at the door, dude.
It makes no sense. We are currently undergoing what I like to call the “Jobs” Revolution. As Daniel Pink explains in his book, A Whole New Mind, “We’ve progressed from a society of farmers to a society of factory workers to a society of knowledge workers. Learners Will Inherit the Earth: Alistair Smith on Reclaiming Education. With Goldman's Foray Into Higher Education, A Predatory Pursuit Of Students And Revenues. Education Management Corp. was already a swiftly growing player in the lucrative world of for-profit higher education, with annual revenues topping $1 billion, but it had its sights set on industry domination.
So, five years ago, the Pittsburgh company's executives agreed to sell its portfolio of more than 70 colleges to a trio of investment partnerships for $3.4 billion, securing the needed capital for an aggressive national expansion. One of the new partners brought an outsized reputation for market savvy, deep pockets and a relentless pursuit of profits -- the Wall Street goliath, Goldman Sachs. After the deal closed and Goldman became a partner, employees soon noticed a drastic shift in culture. Longtime admissions managers were replaced, ushering in an era in which recruiters were endlessly hounded by supervisors about hitting weekly enrollment targets. Revenues grew swiftly at EDMC after the company was taken private in 2006 But a recent complaint from the U.S.