FC NOW: The Fast Company Weblog

Browse by Category › education

December 21, 2007

Education: Goal-Oriented Gaming

I grew up with the belief firmly implanted in my head that video games were a bad influence that would distract me from more constructive pursuits, namely, reading. If the Internet had been as engrossing as it is now among kids, then that probably would have made the list, too. But technology isn't an absolute distraction, as I wrote before a few weeks back, nor it is an immediate boon to any educational pursuit. It depends on how it's utilized, even if it happens to be a video game.

PETLab, a research lab at the Parsons School of Design, seeks to find ways through which video games can further educational pursuits, particularly with regard to social causes. The article about the study, which can be found at eSchool News, mentions the example of military training, which has incorporated games that simulate possible situations that troops might face. Apparently, training games have also made their way into the classroom as tools for teachers and administrators.

Continue reading "Education: Goal-Oriented Gaming"

Posted by April Joyner at 1:08 PM | 4 Comments

December 18, 2007

Education: The Cream Is Rising

As concern that U.S. schools just don't have many good teachers continues to rise, it's encouraging that the education field has actually attracted more academically skilled workers in the past few years, as reported in The New York Times. From 2002 to 2005, according to the Educational Testing Service, which publishes the Praxis teacher licensing exams, the average SAT scores and GPAs of candidates have increased, and the percentage of candidates with GPAs below 3.0 has decreased.

Attracting candidates with higher academic qualifications has become a significant focus in the move to improve the quality of teachers. The Times article includes remarks from the president of the New Teacher Project, a non-profit organization which strives to help districts that have faced recruitment problems attract high-quality teachers. Teach for America, which continues to rack up accolades -- most recently, one of our 2008 Social Capitalist Awards -- also takes a page from this book: in the fall semester at many top-tier colleges, its recruiters are nearly as ubiquitous as those of investment banks.

The question of whether high qualifications result in higher student performance remains unanswered, however. Despite, or perhaps because of, its success, Teach for America has its share of critics who believe that the organization's burnouts outnumber its superstars. Even professional-related qualifications have come under question. The Florida legislature seeks to review a bonus program that rewards teachers who earn national board certification (although this may be due in large part to finances -- payouts totaled $70.9 million in 2006).

Even if high academic marks or national certification doesn't completely equate with high student achievement, it's good that education is increasingly attracting the best students rather than acting as a dumping ground for the bottom third, as previous studies have suggested, according to the Times. The news that more of the best and brightest see education as a lucrative profession should boost morale in the field, which has taken more than enough hits!

Posted by April Joyner at 12:54 PM | 1 Comment

December 7, 2007

Education: Much Ado About Golden Arches

The New York Times' article about McDonald's in Seminole County, Fla., rewarding local students with Happy Meals for academic achievement has certainly provoked much commentary. I wasn't sure if I would post on the topic, but after seeing that one of our own expert bloggers, Tom Stern, has already tackled the subject, I figured I might as well offer another point of view.

My first question: what's the fuss? The idea of local businesses offering products and services for students' academic achievement isn't new. The article states upfront that the Seminole County McDonald's program is replacing one sponsored by local Pizza Huts. And if you look through the article's comments, you'll read many accounts from readers with fond memories of similar programs in their school districts. The one legitimate complaint seems to be the report card jacket, which features photos of McDonald's menu items. While dressing up report cards as ads goes too far, it has nothing to do with the premise of rewards itself.

Continue reading "Education: Much Ado About Golden Arches"

Posted by April Joyner at 1:30 PM | 7 Comments

November 30, 2007

Education: Pre-Collegiate Branding

The next generation of business leaders certainly won't struggle with the concept of personal branding. Personal branding has become crucial at an even earlier life stage: the increasingly high-stakes college admissions process during the junior and senior years of high school.

It's well known now that one's online presence is just as important as one's offline persona, as illustrated by reports that some companies hire people to screen job candidates' social network profiles and search their name through Google. I recently read an article from the Dayton Daily News about the same screening process in college admissions. It makes perfect sense, as teens, ever active on Facebook and MySpace, may have even more of an online presence than many adults.

Continue reading "Education: Pre-Collegiate Branding"

Posted by April Joyner at 1:00 PM | 1 Comment

November 16, 2007

Education: Dazed and Confused Over Metrics

What determines a good school? Usually the quantitative data -- most frequently standardized test scores and graduation rates -- carry the most weight in answering that question. On the qualitative side, there's student and parent satisfaction and teacher morale, among other factors. The key, as in all professions, is determining metrics -- figuring out how all of these different factors should be measured and calibrated. This past month, however, has included several stumbles in achieving this task in education.

In New York last week, much buzz -- and fallout -- ensued over the release of "report cards" for the city's schools. Each school received a letter grade (A-F) based upon student performance (weighted 30 percent), student improvement (weighted 55 percent), and school environment (weighted 15 percent). Because student improvement accounted for a majority of the grade, some schools with high test scores but scant gains from one year to the next were deemed to be failing. Conversely, some schools whose test scores continued to flag but had made significant gains were given A's.

Continue reading "Education: Dazed and Confused Over Metrics"

Posted by April Joyner at 2:41 PM | 3 Comments

November 9, 2007

Education: Technology -- Academic Godsend or Demon?

As I've read through education headlines this past week, two stories struck me because of their oppositional views of technology:

View #1: Isn't new technology great? Maine's initiative to provide all seventh- and eighth-graders with laptops has boosted the state's writing scores.

View #2: Actually, technology can be a giant nuisance. In classrooms, laptops and electronics easily cause distractions, as seen in colleges nationwide. Samuel Freedman of The New York Times certainly isn't a fan. And (this is my interpretation, extending the sentiment further) if technology can create such havoc at the tertiary level, imagine the disturbances in K-12 schools.

Continue reading "Education: Technology -- Academic Godsend or Demon?"

Posted by April Joyner at 5:08 PM | Add Comment

November 2, 2007

Education: Bookkeeping, Book Learning, and Earning

I was tempted to call today's post "When Business and Education Collide -- The Sequel":

If you want students to learn more math, send them to a school run by a for-profit company. That's the conclusion drawn by a Harvard study of Philadelphia schools that shows schools run by for-profit companies made greater gains in math than they did previously under district management. In addition, the for-profit-run schools outperformed those run by non-profit companies in math instruction. The study, however, was funded in part by Edison Schools, a for-profit company, which may cast suspicion -- founded or not -- on the results.

In other business-related education news, the gap between elite universities' endowments and the rest has grown in large part because of allocations to "alternative" assets. "Ivy Plus" schools like Yale, Harvard, Stanford, and MIT do not only have larger endowments, but their growth rates have surpassed those of other colleges and universities substantially in the last decade thanks to investments in venture capital and hedge funds. But now that the secret to their success is out, it looks like the others have missed the boat: the article includes the final prediction that these strategies might not work so well in the future.

In Utah, the business-education conjunction takes a contentious turn. On Tuesday -- Election Day -- voters will decide whether or not to pass Referendum 1, which would implement a school voucher program. The program would allow families from all income levels, not just low-income ones, to receive grants toward private school for their children. A group of business leaders, including Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne, has banded together in support of the referendum, even sending out pro-voucher letters to employees -- a move that has drawn ire from critics. Interestingly, an encouraging piece of news for Utah schools -- none of them show up on the Department of Education's recently published list of "dropout factories" -- may add fuel to the fire, judging from some readers' comments.

As these examples illustrate, the conjunction between business and education continues to prove sometimes beneficial, often messy. The endowment report leads to a pessimistic refrain often heard in the No Child Left Behind era of education: the rich keeping getting richer, and there's no catching up. For all its promises of innovation, the experiment in for-profit management also has its detractors. A critical look at one Philadelphia school run by Microsoft can be found in this article from the September issue of Fast Company. And support for voucher plans like Utah's often stems from a business principle -- that more choice in schools leads to greater competition, subsequently leading to an improvement in their quality -- which may not translate as well to education. But if the Utah referendum passes, the hypothesis will finally be tested.

Posted by April Joyner at 1:55 PM | 1 Comment

October 26, 2007

Education: Growing Up Green

The November issue of Fast Company includes a feature on "50 Ways to Green Your Business." Indeed, concern for the future of the environment has become a key component of social responsibility, and companies looking to enhance their public image (and save money) are jumping on the green bandwagon. But what about that other hub of social responsibility: the one that grooms the next generation of leaders in business and other fields?

Precisely because environmentalism has become an increasingly important component of social responsibility, the push to "go green" has begun to spread to K-12 schools. The New York Times ran an article yesterday on one school's adoption of environmentalist efforts. As the article points out, these efforts have extended from recycling programs to environmental themes, hiring sustainability officers, and even incorporating green design into new school buildings.

Continue reading "Education: Growing Up Green"

Posted by April Joyner at 1:09 PM | Add Comment

October 19, 2007

Education: Does Money Talk?

What motivates workers to exceed their duties? Or to stay in their current positions when equally or even more promising opportunities may exist? The idealistic answer is "love of the job" -- and most people who do both these things indeed love their job -- but the realist, capitalist, answer is "more money!"

For most teachers, however, "more money" doesn't exist as a possible motivator. They receive the same base pay, regardless of their skill, talent, or location within a particular district. But as insiders and outsiders have cast a critical eye upon American education, the idea of merit pay has increasingly come up for discussion.

Most recently, the New York City Department of Education has decided to experiment with a plan to offer performance bonuses to teachers in "high-need" schools -- those in the city's poorest neighborhoods. It isn't a conventional merit salary or bonus program, however, as the bonus money will be given to the schools themselves and then divvied up among teachers at the discretion of the principal and a "compensation committee."

Teachers' unions have often been critical of the idea of merit pay, arguing that it fosters favoritism and that most school districts don't have a uniform system of evaluating its employees -- from school to school, standards vary. These two factors could lead to animosity within the staff of a particular school or district, undermining the value of teamwork in a profession where it is very necessary. But the New York plan doesn't reward individual teachers directly. It takes the approach of looking at a school to see whether its teachers have made above-average strides, thereby encouraging collaboration among teachers within a school in order to receive extra payoffs.

This plan, however, may have some of the same weaknesses in evaluation as the oft-derided No Child Left Behind. How will schools' eligibility for bonuses be determined? What if one class led by an exceptional teacher performs well but others fall flat, despite efforts at collaboration? At least the plan only regards bonuses and not salaries -- which most likely makes it a less contentious issue than, for instance, programs like the Teacher Advancement Program, which institute ladder categories for teachers up to the level of "master teacher" and corresponding increases in pay.

Whether or not the NYC bonus program receives ultimate raves, it acknowledges that "love of the job" may not be enough of an incentive for teachers in the most challenging environments. This acknowledgment doesn't make education any less noble. It just offers another motivation for teachers to do their jobs even better -- the same incentive that virtually all other professions have taken for granted.

Posted by April Joyner at 1:24 PM | Add Comment

October 15, 2007

Education: Making the Classroom Hot

"School" and "cool" rhyme, but, sadly, you probably won't find the two together in any sentence uttered by today's students. With growing adoptions of the latest technology in the classroom, however, educators are trying hard to change that.

For me, "technology" in K-12 largely consisted of overhead projectors, slideshows, and, later, ridiculously slow Compaqs -- not so cutting-edge, considering I finished college only months ago. Today's students get Facebook and iPhones. A study by the National School Boards Association this year found that social networking may be beneficial for schoolwork, as 60 percent of students used sites like Facebook to discuss college plans and receive help with homework, among other education-related activities. (Facebook: so much cooler than the Homework Help hotline.) And researchers at UC Davis are hard at work testing educational third-party applications for the iPhone. One district in Arizona has already adopted the phones -- minus calling functionality -- for use in the classroom.

Efforts to liven up education have also come heavily on the publicity end. As No Child Left Behind, currently up for renewal, faces criticism like clockwork, the ED in 08 campaign is fighting to give education the same cachet as environmentalism -- the new sexy media topic -- or even health care, which has generated new buzz thanks to Hillary's presidential bid. Last month the organization revealed a video spot with Kanye West. The choice is quite ironic, given Kanye made it big off an album called College Dropout (though I hear he's "graduated" since then). And although the rapper surely has currency with students, his political and educational cred seems lacking, which makes the approach quite puzzling.

Los Angeles' school district has taken an approach that's only marginally better. To help lower dropout rates, the district has created a Website with the slogan "My Future, My Decision." In conjunction with the Website spots will appear on YouTube featuring student testimonials, MySpace networking, local radio campaigns, and motivational text messages. The YouTube and MySpace campaigns don't appear to be up and running just yet. Though both sites attract large numbers of youth, it's not very likely that students at risk of dropping out will go out of their way to find videos commissioned by the Los Angeles United School District, let alone a forum in which to discuss them? They certainly won't be clamoring to sit through speeches on why dropping out is bad.

In order for this viral campaign to take off, the spots have to be catchy and instructive. Perhaps LAUSD should hold a contest for the most entertaining anti-dropout video and partner with some creative aspiring filmmakers. (They're certainly in the right location!) That might get some students sharing. Then they'll have fodder for discussion on MySpace, although the text-messaging part remains iffy.

Here's hoping LAUSD, Ed in 08, educators, and advocates all over can make education hot for current and future generations.

Posted by April Joyner at 1:07 PM | 4 Comments

October 5, 2007

Education: When Business and Education Collide -- The Good, Bad, and the Ugly

Recent grads entering the workforce have gotten accustomed to hearing bad news about their prospects with increasing frequency. The rising costs of higher education means graduates pay for college much longer than four years. Young adults are more dependent on their parents than ever before. Specific job skills being taught now might not be applicable for the next generation of workers. And the list goes on and on....

So what to do? Alma maters are increasingly lending a helping hand, with more and more colleges and universities hiring career advisers specifically for alumni. The most valuable services: reintroducing alumni to their school network and helping them build their contacts. Next in line to extend the generosity should be the institutions that partnered with private lenders to "help" students and wound up making them even more desperate for a well-paying job.

High schools in several states are also stepping up their career prep, this time by requiring students to "major" in a career field. On the plus side, it jump-starts students' consideration of their futures and motivates them overall in their schoolwork. But on the minus side, not many ninth-graders know what they want to do tomorrow, let alone in eight years. Of course, exploring legal studies in high school doesn't mean you're on a fast track to becoming the next Johnnie Cochran. It means nothing, actually, about your eventual career path -- which is why, from a career prep standpoint, the requirement isn't that beneficial. The annual career fair will do.

Then there's the ever-looming problem of being able to shell out the cash once you actually have figured out your career path. Loans once held the promise of lifting undue financial burden off the shoulders of people with ample determination but limited funds for college. But private lenders squandered that promise with abysmally high interest rates and got rich in the process. This prompted Congress to reduce subsidies to lenders in attempts to reform the educational loan process. Now the business of college finance looks a lot less enticing, as indicated by the failed Sallie Mae acquisition. Whether or not this upheaval will benefit students and graduates in debt is another story. There will probably always be a fresh supply of i-bankers and consultants who aren't interested in their chosen careers nearly as much as paying off those loans.

So, as education and business go increasingly hand in hand, I'm left with two questions. How much influence does your field of study have on your actual career? And will the increasing debt incurred from financing higher education cancel out college's benefits one day?

Posted by April Joyner at 2:38 PM | 3 Comments

September 28, 2007

Education: The Diversity Quest in Little Rock and (Corporate) America

This week marked the 50th anniversary of the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas by nine black students. News reports documented the Little Rock Nine's warmly-welcomed return to the school -- a stark contrast from the jeering mobs that greeted them in 1957. The article about the anniversary that stood out most, though, was the Washington Post's profile of Ernest Green, the lone senior in the group, who graduated from Central in 1958. Green now lives in Washington, D.C., where he works as managing director of public finance for Lehman Brothers.

As anyone who's casually glanced at Supreme Court headlines over the years knows, the push towards integration in education has been reversed by changes in social and legal opinion. Yet in the business world, often criticized for its lack of diversity, initiatives to attract diverse workers remain in place. Green only exemplifies the progression of the drive for integration from education to business. And as he acknowledged in the Post article, his previous experiences in Little Rock gave him more than enough preparation for his current position at Lehman: "It made me a tougher negotiator, able to control my emotions and able to handle the ups and down of business and life."

Continue reading "Education: The Diversity Quest in Little Rock and (Corporate) America"

Posted by April Joyner at 12:10 PM | Add Comment

September 21, 2007

Education: Reality TV -- It's Visual and Kinesthetic Learning!

CBS's new reality show "Kid Nation" has sparked outrage, or at the very least, strong concerns that:

1. the child participants were exploited, and;


2. this violated New Mexico's child labor laws.

But in a recent twist, which came just before the show's Wednesday night premiere, it turns out that the show is actually...educational programming.

Or at least, as reported by The New York Times, CBS took at least one step toward spinning the show's message in that direction by screening it for schoolchildren in seven cities nationwide. Reportedly, the show received an enthusiastic response. (Click here and here for two local reports.)

Continue reading "Education: Reality TV -- It's Visual and Kinesthetic Learning!"

Posted by April Joyner at 12:52 PM | Add Comment

September 14, 2007

Education: Eat Your Vegetables! Or At Least a Nutritionally Modified Burger....

Quite a few headlines about nutrition have cropped up in the past week and a half. Although the battle against obesity still rages on, a federal judge struck down New York City's requirement that restaurants, including chains like McDonald's, include calorie information on their menus. Interestingly enough, The New York Times ran a piece last week on Hannaford Brothers, a grocery store chain based in Maine, and its nutrition rating program for each of the food products it carries. That article's conclusion? Healthy food sells.

It definitely sells to parents of schoolchildren, for whom the obesity issue arguably looms largest. Schools nationwide have altered their menus and blocked access to junk food during the school day -- by limiting or eliminating vending machines and curtailing candy and bake fund-raising sales, among other measures -- to promote healthy eating habits among their students. And if sugary, colorful, nutrient-deprived foods and beverages weren't a concern already for the nutrition-conscious, a recent study suggesting that food additives may be linked to hyperactivity make them even more so.

All this sounds like bad news, of course, for the big brands who sell less than wholesome food to school districts. The term "nutritionally modified junk food" made waves a few months ago, and the new school year gave way to anecdotes about whole-wheat pizza and baked "French fries." Whether or not these changes are innovative or merely gimmicky is debatable. But the recent NYC ruling and the Hannaford example suggests that making voluntary strides toward healthy food choices is more effective than forcing such steps.

For most K-12 students, though, nutrition isn't so compelling, which is why fast food chains -- which are more youth-driven than other types of restaurants -- might not jump to posting calorie information as quickly. The tension between voluntary and involuntary nutritional guidelines seen in the headlines comes to a head in the schools, where healthy food and "nutritionally modified junk food" during the day still results in plain old junk food after the bell rings. If voluntary's the way to go, how can the success of Hannaford's healthy selections be replicated in the schools? That's a question for districts nationwide -- as well as those ubiquitous brands in the halls.

Posted by April Joyner at 6:00 PM | Add Comment

September 12, 2007

Education: Losing and Gaining Religion

With my last post about Brooklyn's controversial Khalil Gibran International Academy in mind, I couldn't help but notice recent headlines on a Hebrew charter school in Florida and Catholic schools in Washington, D.C. As I discussed last Friday, the primary objection to the Khalil Gibran International Academy was the threat of extremist Islam and pro-Arab sentiments being encouraged. Ben Gamla Charter School in Hollywood, Florida faced concerns that the study of Hebrew would lead to an unconstitutional promotion of Judaism. But the school has been allowed to continue its course of study, which, like Khalil Gibran, includes the same core curriculum as other schools in its grade level with added emphasis on language and cultural studies.

In Washington, D.C., Archbishop Donald Wuerl has proposed converting eight of its Catholic schools into public-funded charter schools because the archdiocese can no longer support the schools financially. The conversion would ensure that the schools' students would have an uninterrupted education. However, the schools would cease to be Catholic, which means the character, though not necessarily the educational quality, of the schools would be lost. The anxiety over the switchover, again thanks to the separation of church and state, leaves me wondering: could the soon-not-to-be Catholic schools integrate culture in a similar way as Khalil Gibran and Ben Gamla?

Of course, the curricula of those schools are driven by language study. Islam's associated with Arabic, Judaism with Hebrew, and Catholicism with... Latin. Latin is definitely not on Bush's list of critical languages (although aspiring academics should still study it). But with so many Latin American and African countries having large Catholic populations, perhaps Spanish, Portuguese, or an African language could be similarly promoted. Studying these countries, most of which are developing, would tie into values such as charity that Archbishop Wuerl hopes secularity won't erase. And because the history of Catholicism still wields global cultural and political influence, it's worth studying through a secular approach. If public schools have given cultural immersion in Judaism and Islam a go, a similar educational structure for Catholicism doesn't seem far-fetched. It would only widen the trend of specialized public education.

Posted by April Joyner at 6:11 PM | 1 Comment

September 7, 2007

Education: Tongue-Tied in Arabic

The U.S. government has identified Arabic as one of the "critical languages" for those entering the workforce in the next few decades. Yet, how Arabic should be studied remains controversial, as the overwhelming criticism of Brooklyn's Khalil Gibran International Academy shows.

Critics of the new school, which opened on Tuesday, range from Stop the Madrassa founder Pamela Hall to Middle East scholar and commentator Daniel Pipes, who believe it has strong potential to indoctrinate its students with radical Islamism and Arab nationalism. Supporters of the academy, including New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and school chancellor Joel Klein, have stressed that separation of church and state prohibits the school's curriculum from focusing on religious ideology.

The critics of the Khalil Gibran International Academy aren't against the Arabic language being taught in public schools. Knowing the language fluently has become a big advantage for job-seekers, especially in positions with the federal government. The CIA, for instance, awards bonuses of up to $35,000 for Arabic speakers. In tertiary education, Arabic instructors often net a higher pay than instructors of more commonly taught languages like Spanish. And President Bush's National Security Language Initiative, announced last year, puts $114 million toward the demand for Arabic and other critical languages.

Continue reading "Education: Tongue-Tied in Arabic"

Posted by April Joyner at 3:11 PM | 5 Comments

August 31, 2007

Education: The Doll Test, From K-12 to Kmart

This month, Kmart began selling up to four dozen new ethnic dolls in its stores. Coincidentally, this is the year that Brown v. Board of Education was effectively overturned by the Supreme Court. A critical component of the Brown case was psychologist Kenneth Clark's "doll test," which showed black kids favoring white dolls over the black dolls that looked like them.

A 2005 mini-documentary called A Girl Like Me argued that the results of the Clark doll test might still ring true over fifty years later. Yet the success of brands such as Dora the Explorer prove that ethnic dolls, which have been around for quite a while, are more popular than ever before. What's most significant about the Kmart dolls, besides the sheer variety, is that they're not restricted to a specialized ethnic line but are dispersed throughout the store's generic offerings. If they weren't considered so already, ethnic dolls are definitely now mainstream.

So what does this mean for education? Past challenges to Brown and affirmative action have forced educators to rethink how to make their classrooms diverse. Perhaps Kmart's mainstreaming of the multicultural brand can offer a lesson for educators. One thing's for sure: with all the new varieties on the shelves, the doll test is dead.

Posted by April Joyner at 6:39 PM | 2 Comments

March 9, 2007

Eat Your Carrots and You Get a Dollar

Oh, how the times have changed! When I was in high school (which was not all that long ago), it was just expected that kids who were smart (and many who weren't) would take Advanced Placement (AP) classes and then go on to take the corresponding test at the end of the course in hopes of receiving a 3 or above to achieve college credit. But it seems that kids these days just aren't all that motivated anymore to do this -- even if it means saving thousands of dollars and countless (usually very dull) hours on a college class that they could test out of in a couple of hours.

What could possibly be the remedy to this mass apathy by America's youth?! Well, it would be the National Math and Science Initiative or in simpler terms -- paying kids to take tests and get good grades. According to an article today in the Wall Street Journal, Exxon Mobil contributed a whopping $125 million to launch the program that will create incentives for kids to take AP test in an effort to increase the interest in math and science courses.

The nonprofit initiative hopes to have the program up and running in 150 school districts in 20 states within five years, and seeks to add an additional 50,000 students to the 400,000 in math and science, and 300,000 in English already passing the AP tests.

While it would have been great to be paid to take those tests that I loathed so much during high school (what kid wouldn't want the cash?), this doesn't seem to me to be the solution to America falling behind in these subjects. Personally, I love science. Math, not so much. But creating programs that would challenge kids and create interest in these subjects seems like a much better idea to me than just paying them off. I just don't think our current business leaders should be teaching tomorrow's leaders that they could buy their way out of any problem. Companies like Exxon could be putting that money toward paying teachers more or getting better books or improving the science lab in schools around the country. Schools could use SecondLife as a way of bringing students closer to scientists that are actually in the field or engage kids in math by letting them manipulate the real-time numbers on Google Finance.

What programs would you create (that don't involve bribery) as a means of getting kids more involved in science and math?

Posted by Lisa LaMotta at 3:12 PM | 9 Comments

January 9, 2007

Social Networking Evades Schools

A recent survey from the National School Boards Association found that most schools don't have policies regarding the use of social networking sites.

Prior to the association's annual Technology + Learning conference, an e-mail survey revealed that 35% of respondents had a policy in place, 50% did not, and 15% didn't know. Most of the respondents who said they had a policy in place, reported that the most common approach was use of a firewall or filtering software to block student access to such sites as MySpace and YouTube while at school. Very few responses included teaching students about responsible use of online social networks, according to the survey.

NSBA's executive director, Anne Bryant, noted:

"It is important to keep in mind that just blocking access to social web sites at school is not the end of the story. Most of the misuse of these sites takes place at home, but still affects the classroom. We have to teach our students about the safe and proper use of social web sites."

Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 12:23 PM | 2 Comments

August 28, 2006

Business Minded Teens

According to a recent poll released from JA Worldwide (Junior Achievement), more than 70 percent of teens are interested in starting their own businesses.

The most popular type of business, selected by 32.4 percent of respondents, was “professional services,” such as a lawyer, insurance agent, or accountant. More than nine-of-ten (95.1 percent) teens who took the fifth annual JA Worldwide “Interprise™ Poll on Entrepreneurship” believe that a college education will help them successfully start and grow a business. The poll was administered online in early 2006, and more than 1,400 teens aged 13-19 voluntarily participated.

With all of the successful college dropout executives out there, such as Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and Microsoft Chairman and Co-Founder Bill Gates, it's interesting that today's youth find college an important step to entrepreneurship. It's even more interesting that in the age of Web 2.0, where teens are being counted as the majority in using these services, that Web and technology entrepreneurship are not being highlighted in this poll.

Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 1:11 PM | 4 Comments

March 17, 2006

Gathering Clouds at Tulane

No one would disagree with the fact that Tulane President Scott Cowen has done a hell of a job bringing his university back from the brink following Hurricane Katrina (access code required). But not everyone has supported his attempt to remake the school in the ensuing months. Yesterday, a group of students and alumnae of Newcomb College, Tulane's longtime women's college, filed a lawsuit against the school. Their goal is to stop Cowen and Tulane's board from shutting down Newcomb, as it has announced it will do in July. The suit claimed "irreparable injury, loss and damage" if the Board is not restrained from eliminating Newcomb Memorial College or reallocating funds derived from the $41 million Newcomb endowment.

Cowen says he's merely trying to streamline the school and divert resources to those areas in which it has a chance to be world-class. Newcomb alums argue that Newcomb, which has been around for over a century, has a history and reputation that should last far beyond the current financial constraints. Whatever happens, it's clear that Cowen's ambitious moves have hit a nerve.

Posted by Jennifer Reingold at 5:28 PM | 8 Comments