Education Blog

Around the Web

Browse our collection of education articles, audio reports, webcasts, blog posts, and video from around the Web. This blog is no longer being updated.

Education Summer Break
Around the Web is taking its summer holiday and will be on hiatus for a while. Please check back in the fall.
July 23, 2007
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Education Building School Pride One Street at a Time
"If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Parkview High School should be blushing." That's how Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter D. Aileen Dodd begins her story on a new high-end subdivision in Atlanta with six streets named for the nearby high school. There's Orange Jungle Way and Big Orange Pass—both playing off Parkview's school color of orange. "Selling a high-end home on a street named after a school could prove to be a winning combination," Ted Kurland, a developer and Realtor with Brokers of Atlanta, Inc., told the newspaper. "I think it's innovative," he said. "In the future there will probably be a lot of pride associated with it."
Mary-Ellen Phelps Deily, July 19, 2007
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Education New School Promises 'Customized Education'
A new private school in Miami promises "customized education" for children with autism and other neurobiological disorders, The Miami Herald reports. Kevin Gersh, the school's founder, says allowing students to help design their educational plans ultimately helps them focus on learning. Gersh's Coral Rock Academy is set to open in September. Annual tuition will be $30,000, and officials plan to enroll 20 students from grades 4 to 12.
Mary-Ellen Phelps Deily, July 18, 2007
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Education Back-to-School Spending is Big Business
The National Retail Federation projects that back-to-school spending this year will exceed a whopping $18 billion.
Mary-Ellen Phelps Deily, July 17, 2007
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Education "Mister Rogers" Goes Digital
Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa., has begun digitizing 900 episodes of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" dating to 1967 and will make them available to educators and media specialists studying child development, early learning, and children's media, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.
Mary-Ellen Phelps Deily, July 12, 2007
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Education Heartbreak and Progress in Afghanistan
The International Herald Tribune offers a harrowing tale of schooling in Afghanistan. Reporter Barry Bearak opens with a scene out of a war movie—young girls trying to outrun gunmen lurking just outside the Qalai Sayedan School. Bearak says six girls were shot in the June 12 incident; two of them fatally. He cites "tools of intimidation used by the Taliban and others to shut down hundreds of schools here. To take aim at education is to make war on the government. Parents find themselves with terrible choices. 'It is better for my children to be alive even if it means they must be illiterate,' " one father tells the newspaper.
Mary-Ellen Phelps Deily, July 12, 2007
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Education CNN Gives Education Headlines a Summer Break
The nation’s schoolchildren aren’t the only ones taking a vacation from school. When it relaunched its Web site last month CNN.com nixed the “Education” news link on its home page in favor of a category dubbed “Funny News,” Dan Brown reports on the Huffington Post.
July 11, 2007
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Education Study Examines Teasing's Impact on Overweight Kids
Children who are made fun of for being overweight may carry deep psychological scars because of it, according to The Boston Globe. A new Yale University study "found that overweight and obese children who are subjected to verbal taunts and physical bullying are substantially more prone during childhood to suicidal thoughts, eating disorders, and high blood pressure than their peers," the Globe reports.
Mary-Ellen Phelps Deily, July 11, 2007
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Education Multiple Choice on Choice
"Place yourself back in First Grade," Matthew Ladner writes on edspresso.com. Then, choose where you'd like to attend the public schools: (a) Washington, D.C., (b) Los Angeles, (c) Chicago, or (d) none of the above. Did you choose (d)? Uh-oh. "If those schools are not suitable for you in theory, then they are not suitable for low-income children in practice," writes Ladner, the vice president of research at the Goldwater Institute. Writing for the Center for Education Reform's edspresso blog, Ladner opines that children in inner-city schools face very limited opportunities and that, if all children faced such limits, the system would change. He advocates for reform on two fronts: "expand school choice options for all parents and completely overhaul the resource development and compensation system for teachers."
Mary-Ellen Phelps Deily, July 11, 2007
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Education Summer School, Not Summer Jobs
More teens are spending summer days in school rather than on the job, USA Today reports. According to U.S. Labor Department statistics released July 6, only 48.8% of teens ages 16 to 19 were working or looking for work in June. That was down from 51.6% in June 2006 and below the 60.2% in the labor force in June 2000, reporter Barbara Hagenbaugh writes. The reasons for the downturn are varied, including more adult competition for jobs that once went to teens and more families saving for college—which means students don't have to earn as much cash to pay college tuition. In addition, one expert tells the newspaper that teens see the benefits of extra learning. "The value of school is higher than it used to be," said Daniel Sullivan, senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
Mary-Ellen Phelps Deily, July 10, 2007
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Education Tracking School Law Twists in the Internet Age
The American School Board Journal offers educators perspective on legal twists and turns of the cyber age in a piece titled, "Blogging for Columbine." "The 'dark side' of student online expression, including some aspects of social networking sites like MySpace, confronts school officials with issues that place schools on uncertain legal ground and at the crux of conflicting societal demands," Thomas Hutton, a senior staff attorney for the National School Boards Association, writes in the July issue. Hutton goes on to point out instances where courts have been sympathetic to educators' complaints and cases where schools have received the cold shoulder. A helpful primer on freedom of expression in the Internet age.
Mary-Ellen Phelps Deily, July 6, 2007
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Education Boost in Autism Numbers Strains Services
The Boston Globe reports on the sharp increase in the number of children diagnosed with autism in Massachusetts and the impact its having on programs that serve them. "Many people who haven't had the experience assume the hardest part is hearing your child has autism," Ann Guay of Bedford told the Globe. Her 12-year-old son, Brian, has the disorder. "But I think the greater challenge is trying to obtain the services you know your child desperately needs."
Mary-Ellen Phelps Deily, July 5, 2007
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Education What's in a School Name?
The Kansas City Star reports that schools are less frequently being named after historical figures and are instead becoming namesakes for geographical features or forces of nature. The article is based on this report out of the Manhattan Institute, that found that community leaders are no longer naming schools for Abraham Lincoln or George Washington or even more modern political figures. Instead the trend appears to be towards naming schools with nature in mind, like Windy Pointe or Sandy Springs.
Michelle R. Davis, July 3, 2007
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Education Commentary on the Court
As school districts try to interpret last week's U.S. Supreme Court decision on school desegregation, editorial pages across the country have offered the following opinions:
July 2, 2007
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