WEEKEND READING: Catching Up On The Past Few Days

Year Up Program Prepares At-Risk Youth to Thrive in Corporate Culture PBS
The Year Up program aims to alleviate the 30 percent unemployment rate among urban youth by giving at-risk young adults lessons in job skills and corporate culture.

Blue Man Group Creates High-Tech NYC Preschool NPR
The Blue School — at up to $27,000 a year — is an experiment to help kids explore "divergent thinking."

Wanted: More science and math teachers in the US Christian Science Monitor
School officials hope financial and training incentives will help fill the need for 200,000 new teachers.

Teachers use blogs to forge new links with students, parents Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Some North Texas teachers’ blog posts are direct and to the point. Others are feel-good updates on personal lives.

The Parent-Teacher Talk Gains a New Participant NYT
Student-led conferences are gaining ground at elementary and middle schools nationwide, in part because of the rapidly shifting demographics at public schools.

Workers' Paradise The New Republic
Even in a city known for its strivers, his appointees seem to be a disproportionately intense bunch.

Scientific illiteracy all the rage among the glitterati The Independent
When it comes to science, Barack Obama is no better than many of us. Today he joins the list of shame of those in public life who made scientifically unsupportable statements in 2008.

Why Are Spanish Schools So Behind? National Public Radio
Spanish schoolchildren have consistently ranked near the bottom in comparisons of reading, math and science skills with those of other industrialized countries. Lately that's proving extremely problematic.

"All Things Considered" thank you earns teacher some publicity Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The discussion was on giving charitable donations online and Gallaga was asked if that was a more impersonal way of giving.

Two districts left behind by error, state says Wahoo Newspaper
The information the department released Monday represents an important determination about how schools rate according to No Child Left Behind.

More schools left behind Omaha World-Herald, NE
Across Nebraska, 41 public schools — up from 24 last year — have been designated as needing academic improvement under the federal No Child Left Behind law.

Cuts Imperil a Real High School Musical NYT
Amid state and city budget cuts, the bright lights have dimmed at Fiorello H. La Guardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts — the school of “Fame” fame.