AM News: Head Start Next for Cuts?

Head Start Fears Impact of Potential Budget Cuts NYT: Tens of thousands of young children from low-income families could be dropped from Head Start programs if Congress cannot find a way to prevent automatic cuts to the federal budget in 2013.

A Different Road To Work, Bypassing College Dreams NPR: With college costs rising and student debt mounting, some high school graduates in Charlotte, N.C., are opting for an alternative route: European-style apprenticeships.

NYC Plans to Address Distribution of Students With Special Needs NYT: New York City public school officials have told state education officials that they will work to balance the enrollment of pupils in city schools to ensure that children with high needs are not overly concentrated in a handful of institutions.

A Teacher Remembers the Accused Colorado Gunman EdWeek: Paul Karrer is a 5th grade teacher at Castroville Elementary School in north Monterey County, Calif. He is a union negotiator and was the League of United Latin American Citizens’ 2009 teacher of the year for north Monterey County.

LAUSD tries to move away from 'one-size-fits-all' approach to teaching SCPR: Bonkovsky says the model called “Expanded School Based Management” allows the most freedom from district policies. That means schools will be able to design their own assessment systems and choose their own curricula.

 

Comments

[Bruce]

LAUSD may be getting back on the road to being a district that is a source of innovation, rather than the struggling, nationally irrelevant sideshow it has become in recent years. If the district had been offering these freedoms in 2007, it might still be in charge of Locke High School. As things stand today, it would be wise to take notice of that apprenticeship programme in Charlotte, North Carolina, and allow at least one school to set up a Finnish-like curriculum and assessment system that guarantees nine years of high quality general education, and then a choice between college-preparatory and vocational education in the last three years of upper secondary school. Countries that have such systems have much lower unemployment rates than countries with bigoted college-for-everybody, one-size-fits-all, A-G systems (which has been more typical of the recent educational reform strategy in Greece and western, as opposed to northern central, Europe).

[Sarah]

Paul Karrer's insight into James Holmes is touching and certainly powerful. I agree with him on questioning why civilians are allowed to purchase military-style weaponry. I have neighbors who do and their irresponsible behavior with them is just terrifying.

[Sarah]

And, I too was a straight-A student with one of the highest SAT scores my school had ever seen. I had so many teachers, peers, and guidance counselors state how disappointed they were with me when I decided to go to a technical college rather than some prestigious Ivy League school. Kudos to the students who are opting to take a different path and avoid paying a college Dean's salary and perks with exorbitantly high tuition.