Story By: All Things Considered
Students of all backgrounds are coming of age in an era when the economy is always described as “recovering” â never “recovered”. So with graduation coming up, how are college students are feeling about their prospects? Audie Cornish visited the University of Maryland to find out.
Story By: Talk of the Nation
Budget cuts in many school districts have some parents and teachers questioning whether they have the resources to support their students. NPR education correspondent Claudio Sanchez and Thomas Hehir of Harvard University talk about how to integrate special needs students into mainstream classrooms.
Story By: All Things Considered
President Obama kicked off a three university tour on Tuesday at UNC-Chapel Hill. Student debt now surpasses credit card debt in the U.S., and Obama is pressing Congress to pass an act that would keep interest rates on those loans from doubling this summer. Robert Siegel talks to Scott Horsley.
Story By: by Scott Horsley
President Obama sets off on a two-day tour of college campuses Tuesday to tout a plan to keep student loans more affordable.
The trip is billed as official business, but it has a political flavor. Stops include: North Carolina, where Democrats hold their national convention this summer; Colorado, where Obama accepted his party’s nomination four years ago; and Iowa, where his White House campaign was launched in 2008.
All three states are expected to be hard-fought battlegrounds in November.
Obama is rolling out an economic message that’s squarely aimed at college students and their parents. He’s urging Congress to preserve the low interest rate on subsidized student loans. Unless lawmakers act, the rate is scheduled to double July 1.
Obama says that would mean higher college bills for more than 7 million students: “At a time when the unemployment rate for Americans with at least a college degree is about half the national average, it’s never been more important. But here’s the thing: It’s also never been more expensive.”
After delivering that argument Saturday in his weekly radio address, Obama is taking it on the road â to college basketball arenas, where he’ll be speaking to thousands of people.
Lauren Hovis, who’s with the Young Democrats at the University of North Carolina, says fans began queuing up Saturday night.
“The line was extremely long to get tickets,” she says. “So I think it’s actually, we’re really pumped and we’re really excited about Obama.”
The president needs that kind of excitement this fall, if he’s to come anywhere close to matching the support he got from young voters four years ago.
“These folks were so, so, so enthusiastic for Barack Obama in 2008,” says Charlie Cook, a political forecaster. He adds that Obama not only won the youth vote by 34 points that year, but young voters also turned out in near-record numbers â with a passion that will be hard to replicate this year.
“It was such a historic thing; it really galvanized young voters. And I don’t sense that electricity is there,” Cook says.
Katherine Valde heads the student Democrats at the University of Iowa, where Obama speaks Wednesday. She admits that some of the high hopes from four years ago â for immigration overhaul or climate change policy, for example â have not been met. What’s more, the tough economic climate has put a damper on college activism.
“People just don’t necessarily have the time to go out and volunteer for campaigns right now,” she says. “People are worried about finding jobs after they graduate, and a lot of people are having trouble finding jobs.”
The job market for new college graduates is improving, though, and a college degree is still a big plus for anyone looking for work.
A couple of weeks ago, the Obama campaign hosted an organizational meeting in Iowa City. Valde says about 200 students showed up, and they’re busy making plans for outreach efforts this fall.
Tuesday night, the president speaks at the University of Colorado. Tyler Quick, who just stepped down as head of the college Democrats there, anticipates another close contest, much like the Senate race in Colorado two years ago.
“It was just a few thousand votes that helped Michael Bennet win his Senate seat. If we can get the same people that turned out for Sen. Bennet to turn out for President Obama, we can make sure that Colorado stays blue this year,” Quick says.
It wasn’t just young voters that helped elect Bennet. His winning coalition, like the president’s, also included Latinos and African-Americans.
Demographer Ruy Teixeira of the left-leaning Center for American Progress says that’s a growing pool of potential voters around the country. But he warns that potential alone is not enough.
“There’s no doubt that demographic shifts are by and large in Obama’s favor. But if the share of voters is to increase among minorities, for example, they have to show up,” Teixeira says.
The president’s supporters say that takes hard work â when the economy is soft and some of the promise of four years ago has gone unfilled.
Meanwhile, Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney is not about to yield the youth vote to Obama. On Monday, Romney joined the president in supporting low interest rates on college loans.
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Story By: All Things Considered
This week, a judge dismissed a lawsuit against New York Law School filed by some of its own recent graduates. They claimed the school’s marketing misled them about their chances of getting jobs as lawyers. Robert Siegel talks with Frank Raimond, an attorney who represented them, about the impact of the ruling. Raimond has been filing similar complaints against other law schools across the country.
Story By: by Tovia Smith
A student reads at a public elementary charter school in New York City. Educators like to say third grade is when students go from learning to read, to reading to learn.
There’s little dispute among educators that kids are not reading as well as they should be, but there’s endless debate over what to do about it. Now, a growing number of states are taking a hard-line approach through mandatory retentions â meaning third-graders who can’t read at grade level will automatically get held back.
To those pushing the idea, it’s equal doses of tough and love: You are not doing kids any favors, they say, by waiving them on to fourth grade if they aren’t up to snuff on their reading.
“It’s essentially just lying to the kid to say that, ‘You are there,’” says Tim Taylor, president of Colorado Succeeds, which is pushing the mandatory-retention approach in that state. “I think what we need to do is to draw a line in the sand and have the fortitude to step up and say this is the right thing for kids.”
Educators like to say third grade is when kids move from learning to read, to reading to learn. So if they don’t yet have basic reading skills, they need to stay back.
“It’s a gift of time,” Taylor says. “It is giving the kids the ability to get to the reading levels that they need so that they can be successful moving through their school career.”
Similar bills are being considered in New Mexico, Iowa and Tennessee; and have recently passed in Oklahoma, Arizona and Indiana. Advocates of the bills point to Florida, where schools started mandatory retentions 10 years ago. There, reading scores for kids who repeated third grade went from way below average to well above average.
That impressed many, including Hanna Skandera, who used to work in Florida and is now education secretary in New Mexico.
“That data that I’ve seen looks pretty darn remarkable,” Skandera says. “Florida’s Hispanic students alone are ahead of 31 other states’ total student populations in fourth-grade reading.”
But others are less impressed.
“[The students] are a year older,” says David Berliner, a professor emeritus of education at Arizona State University. “Of course they’re going to do better when they get into fourth grade.”
Berliner says that even in Florida, those gains faded by eighth grade. In the long term, he says, holding kids back tends to do more harm than good.
“It’s just mean-spirited,” he says. “If you’re willing to spend an extra $10,000 to give the kid another year of schooling, why aren’t you willing to put some money into a tutor over the next two years? That’s what we ought to do â not leave them back, but get them the resources.”
Picking The Better Of Two Stigmas
Parents have a tough choice: pay for private school, move, or stick with a discredited system.
Los Angeles will relax its truancy penalties and instead focus on the reasons kids skip school.
States that already have that requirement have seen unimpressive results.
In a third-grade class in Cambridge, Mass., struggling readers get extra help from teachers like Jocelyn Marshall.
“We’re just sort of trying to catch them every way we can and give them extra reinforcement, but it can be tough with having 20 students in a class,” Marshall says. “We can’t get to that one-on-one with very kid all the time.”
Marshall says she’s seen the downside of promoting students before they’re ready, but she’s also seen problems with keeping kids back: It saps their self-esteem and reduces teachers’ and parents’ expectations.
Harvard education professor Nonie Lesaux says kids who stay back are also more likely to drop out. “Everything we know about retention suggests it’s potentially very traumatic and, socially, it’s very stigmatizing,” Lesaux says.
Skandera says retention alone isn’t the answer â but when coupled with early intervention and extra instruction, it’s an important last resort.
“When we talk about stigma and concerns â illiteracy is the stigma that we need to address,” Skandera says. “This is not a ‘gotcha’ policy; it’s an ‘ensure-our-kids-are-ready-for-success’ policy.”
The trouble is that, so far, there’s no clear answer on whether that policy actually works.
According to Ralph Smith, senior vice president of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, “Both sides will overstate what the little bit of research available says.”
Smith says holding kids back is often seen as easier than developing lots of differentiated learning plans or investing in things like summer school. He says, “There are many people who are seizing on retention because they are looking for an easy answer to a complicated problem.”
Or, as another academic puts it, this policy flunks kids for failing to learn. And given how widespread the problem is, maybe it’s the school that should flunk for failing to teach.
(CNN Student News) — August 30, 2011
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Originally Published On: www.cnn.com – Original Article Here
(CNN Student News) — August 18, 2011
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Transcript
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
YAINER OVIEDO, SENIOR, JOPLIN HIGH SCHOOL: Hi, I’m Yanier Oviedo.
LYDIA MCALLISTER, SENIOR, JOPLIN HIGH SCHOOL: And I’m Lydia McAllister, and we’re from Joplin High School and you’re watching CNN Student News.
CARL AZUZ, CNN STUDENT NEWS ANCHOR: Our thanks to Lydia and Yainer, whom you might remember from yesterday’s program. They were helping us kick off today’s show. We’re gonna hear more from them in just a few minutes. I’m Carl Azuz. Let’s get to today’s headlines.
First Up: Arab Spring
AZUZ: First up, we’re checking in on two countries in turmoil that are both located in the same part of the world. Earlier this year, parts of the Middle East and Northern Africa experienced something that was called an "Arab Spring." Basically, protesters in a bunch of countries revolted against their governments. In some cases, it led to longtime leaders being kicked out of power. In most nations, it led to violence.
That’s what we’re seeing in Syria, the first country we’re talking about today. The violence there has gone on for months. There are reports that Syrian military forces have been shooting at civilians who are speaking out against the Syrian government. Syrian officials deny that. They say they’re targeting armed groups and terrorists. And CNN can’t confirm the claims from either side because Syria won’t let outside journalists into the country. What we do know is that this isn’t just affecting Syrians. The United Nations usually has more than 160 workers in Syria. But it’s pulling dozens of them out because of the violence. Other countries who also have officials in Syria have told them to leave as well.
The north African nation of Libya was also part of that "Arab Spring." The conflict there developed into a civil war. Rebels, like the ones you see in this video that was posted on YouTube, are fighting against the forces of longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi. The rebels say they’re making progress in their efforts to get closer to the capital city of Tripoli, but Gadhafi has been urging his supporters to fight back. The rebels and Libyan military aren’t the only ones involved here. Other countries — including the U.S., as well as Great Britain and France — are part of a NATO mission that’s been flying air strikes against Gadhafi’s forces. Over the past week, NATO planes have damaged or destroyed around 150 military targets.
Failing State
AZUZ: Next up, we’re heading down to southern Africa, to the nation of Malawi, home to around 16 million people. Spring may be long gone, but some people in Malawi are trying to piggy-back off what’s happened in the "Arab Spring." These people are protesting against their government. It hasn’t developed into anything like what we’re seeing in Syria or Libya, but the situation is getting dire. Nkepile Mabuse looks at what’s behind all this.
(BEGIN VIDEO)
NKEPILE MABUSE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Inspired by the "Arab Spring," Malawians took to the streets last month calling for President Bingu wa Mutharika to resign. The country’s human rights commission says police used live ammunition against unarmed civilians, killing 19 people.
This is but one of the many reasons behind the angry demonstrations: just about everything in Malawi is in short supply. People here blame the president for mismanaging the economy. They’ve demanded he explains why he’s seemingly so wealthy while all they know is hardship.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE, MALAWI: People are starving. There is no medicine in the hospitals
UNIDENTIFIED MALE, MALAWI: You go to the shops, people are not buying goods because it’s very difficult to find money and the future looks very bleak.
MABUSE: President wa Mutharika has threatened to "smoke out" those who protest again, but organizers are determined to return to the streets. Malawians are not the only ones demanding good governance. In June, the IMF suspended its financial assistance to Malawi citing economic mismanagement. Britain, the European Union and the United States have also cut aid. Malawi, which was hit by a devastating famine in 2005, is one of the poorest countries in the world. Without the help of foreign governments, many here fear the worst. Wa Mutharika has asked the nation for more time to address their needs, but many here have told us their patience has run out. Nkepile Mabuse, CNN, Malawi.
(END VIDEO)
I.D. Me
TOMEKA JONES, CNN STUDENT NEWS: See of you can I.D. Me. I’m a U.S. government organization that’s part of the Health and Human Services Department. I’m responsible for protecting and advancing public health, and I establish rules for the nation’s food supply. I’m the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, and I’m responsible for regulating parts of the tobacco industry.
FDA Warning Label Lawsuit
AZUZ: Specifically, the FDA deals with the manufacturing, marketing and the distribution of tobacco products. The organization’s facing a lawsuit because of a new rule about cigarette packages. In June, the FDA introduced nine new warning labels. Those include graphic images of what could happen to your body if you smoke. Officials say they’re designed to make people more aware of the dangers of cigarettes. According to the new rules, half the space on each cigarette package would have to display one of these labels by September 2012.
Five tobacco companies have filed a lawsuit against the government. They say these new warning labels are unconstitutional. Their argument is that the government shouldn’t require companies that are making a legal product to put a label on it that essentially urges people not to buy it. An FDA spokeswoman said the agency doesn’t comment on unresolved lawsuits.
Is This Legit?
JIM RIBBLE, CNN STUDENT NEWS: Is this legit? On the Enhanced Fujita scale, an EF-5 is the strongest category of tornado. True! The scale measures a tornado’s wind speed by the damage that the storm causes.
Learning in a Disaster Zone
AZUZ: To put this in perspective: An EF-1 tornado might pull the shingles off your roof. An EF-5 would rip the entire house off its foundation. That’s what roared through Joplin, Missouri last Fall: an EF-5 tornado. Yesterday, we had a report on the start of the new school year in Joplin. And I had a chance to talk with two of the students who were featured in that report. You saw them introduce today’s show. I asked them some of the questions you posted on our blog.
(BEGIN VIDEO)
AZUZ: Yainer, can you describe the mood for us of the students you’ve spoken to as you guys get back to school in Joplin?
OVIEDO: Yeah. So far, the mood’s been really great. Everyone’s excited. We got our laptops today during third and fourth hour, so everyone’s really happy about it.
AZUZ: Lydia, in an article you wrote for CNN.com, you said you were "more excited than usual" to get back to school this year. Talk to us about that.
MCALLISTER: It’s nice going to school every day. Just the normality of it all. It’s been such a crazy summer. Now going to school this week, that’s all the same.
AZUZ: There’s a student on our blog named Montana who wanted to know how difficult it was to prepare for school this year, since so many people lost their supplies in the tornado. What was that like?
MCALLISTER: Actually, we got almost everything donated to our school. So, none of the students had to buy school supplies this year. We even got backpacks given to us with the laptops. So, that’s been really great.
AZUZ: You know, a lot of students saw the story today on CNN Student News; they were really interested in about what it’s like to go to school in a mall, even if it’s in an old store. In fact, Jaeyeong from Korea wanted to know what that’s like.
MCALLISTER: It’s definitely an experience. Something that not a lot of, I don’t know any other high school that has to go to school in a mall. It’s cool. The building itself is shut off from the mall completely. There’s one door, I think, that goes into the mall, but it’s closed off right now.
AZUZ: So, you don’t have direct access to shopping?
MCALLISTER: No, we’re kind of in our own little world over here. It’s nice. I like it.
AZUZ: James wanted to know if you get to eat in the food court?
OVIEDO: I guess they’re trying to see if we can earn it.
AZUZ: Would you prefer to eat there or just have the school food?
MCALLISTER: Definitely the food court.
AZUZ: I want to ask you guys what advice do you have for the students of Ringold, Georgia and Tuscaloosa, Alabama? Now, those are two other towns that were hit by tornadoes this spring. And what sort of advice would you have for students who are getting back to school there?
MCALLISTER: I think you just have to look at it as any other school year and go back knowing that, and go back with a good attitude.
OVIEDO: Stay strong. Things are going to be hard for a while. With all your friends, just going back to normal.
(END VIDEO)
Maps Promo
AZUZ: CNN Student News brings you headlines from around the globe. And on our home page — that’s CNNStudentNews.com — we help you pinpoint just where these global headlines happen. Our maps are free, downloadable and now updated for the new school year. We’re giving you some continental context. You’re gonna love it. Check ‘em out at CNNStudentNews.com.
Before We Go
AZUZ: Before we go, they say that music soothes the savage beast, which is just about the only reason we can think of why someone would stash a piano in the middle of the woods. This one was actually part of an art project. The idea was that people out hiking would find it and maybe sit down to play a song or two. That’s one way to enhance the sounds of the forest.
Goodbye
AZUZ: And it’s another way for people to get in tune with nature. If you’re keyed up for more headlines, come on back tomorrow. For CNNStudentNews.com, I’m Carl Azuz.
Originally Published On: www.cnn.com – Original Article Here