Across the country, high school juniors and seniors are preparing for college. When I was in high school years ago, I was in tons of organizations, volunteered, and took more honors and AP courses than a high schooler should take. I did everything I could to build my resume for college and kept my GPA high. The next item I had to put on my college resume was my ACT score. Let’s just say my ACT score proved that I wasn’t as brilliant as I thought.

What is the ACT? The ACT is a national college admissions exam, testing students in five subject areas of English, math, reading, science, and writing. The highest an individual can score on their ACT is 36. Scoring a 36 almost guarantees admission into any university in the nation and large amounts of scholarship money. Across the country, universities request students to send college applications with an ACT and SAT score. But, in the Midwest, it is common for potential college students to send in just an ACT score.

Kansas ACT scores for 2012 are similar to the previous year, according to The Wichita Eagle. The data released Wednesday revealed students in the class of 2012 are not ready for college. About half of all US high school students scored below the average ACT score, a 21.1. High school classes of 2012 in Kansas had an ACT score average of 21.9, compared to last year’s average score of 22. Read the rest of this entry »

If students in Kansas are about to sign up with a cell phone provider, they should probably consider signing on with Verizon Wireless. This isn’t based on the cost of quality of cell phone service that the provider offers in the state, but instead it based on a somewhat strange factor. What is this factor? The fact that the cell phone company recently announced plans to donate $30,000 to the Kansas Department of Education in a grant.

The grant will be given to the state in order to help fund the training of teachers on the Common Core Standards for English Language Arts and Mathematics. These standards were adopted by the state of Kansas in October 2010 and the funds will be used in the implementation of the plan.

“Verizon Wireless is proud to support the Kansas Department of Education and its undertaking to implement the Common Core Standards in classrooms across the state,” said Brendan Fallis, the Verizon Wireless president of the Kansas/Missouri region. “The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills needed for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.”

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Concordia High School offers students a class on animal science and food production, with the intention of teaching them about food production. By the time student Whitney Hillman found out that the class involved raising and slaughtering a chicken, it was too late to for her to drop it. So, when the kill day came, she decided to take things into her own hands and kidnap her chicken, saving it from slaughter.

“I got two days in-school suspension, but I don’t care,” Whitney told The Wichita Eagle. “They made him my pet and then wanted me to kill him. I couldn’t do that.” She took the class because she wants to study zoology in college.

Although Whitney always earned good grades, she knew that killing a chicken she had raised would not be an assignment she could complete. She told her mother and stepfather about her plan and they agreed to let her carry out the poultry abduction. “Later that day, I took Whitney back to school to turn herself in,” said Whitney’s mother, Kristina Frost. “I told her, ‘This is farm country. I’m glad you’re strong.’ ” Frost criticized the school for making the students bond with animals intended for food.

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Kansas University

When I was accepted to the University of Oklahoma, I received a list of all of the classes and hours I would need in order to graduate. I’ve been chipping away at my required hours for four years, and finally graduation is in sight.

With those numbers being your end goal for so long, can you imagine if the requirements for graduation changed while you were a student? What if suddenly a change in requirements affected when you would graduate? For students at universities in Kansas, this is an issue they now have to face.

According to the Associated Press, The Kansas Board of Regents announced on October 21, 2010 that they would decrease the minimum number of hours needed for a bachelor’s degree from 124 to 120. This will affect students, but not necessarily in a bad way. Students now need less education to graduate than they did last semester, which will make graduating easier. Read the rest of this entry »

The 20 States in red currently allow teachers to legally hit their misbehaving children

Most parents recognize that even in the most well-respected and established education institutions, their children will inevitably misbehave, which will subject them to punishment in accordance to the school’s disciplinary guidelines.

In fact, in most instances, parents, teachers and administrative professionals understand and agree that negative reinforcement is sometimes deemed necessary when disciplining a disruptive pupil. Most, however, envision a trip to the principal’s office or a missed after school activity an appropriate punishment.

One thing they probably don’t envision is a child being hit with a belt or wooden paddle as an appropriate punishment for misbehavior. Read the rest of this entry »

Image via Kansas State Collegian

Amanda Mitchem learned it pays to be able to text fast. The senior at Kansas State University won $1,000.00 in the U.S. Cellular Speed Texting Contest at the Kansas state fair this weekend. Mitchem made it through four rounds before claiming her prize. “I was very excited,” she said. “It was a shock.”

The competition is judged on accuracy in addition to speed. Contestants had to text a phrase to a specific number as soon as it appeared on a display.

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I got online to check my email and a few other things when a headline caught my eye and a picture of someone I know. A fellow Junior International Baccaulaureate classmate, Geoff Stanford, had recently caught an error in this year’s Writing Kansas State Assessment. But is this really something to make such a big deal over?

As I glanced over comments that had been left by others, I could see that many readers agreed with me. Good for Geoff for catching this error, but a typo is not worth this much fuss. Typos occur on a daily basis and many times go unreported, because due to context clues, the typo can be ignored, or in this case, the correct word can easily be determined. I realize, playing the devil’s advocate with myself, that the word originally being “emission” got changed to “omission,” which can completely change the meaning of the sentence. But context, as I said, is key. Geoff and the reporters, I believe, mentioned that the writing prompt dealt with the Greenhouse Effect and Carbon dioxide and I’m sure most students were fully capable of realizing this was a mistake.

As all the teachers were notified across Kansas, was it really necessary to make an article over this simple mistake? As the spokeswoman for the State Department of Education, Karla Denny, said “We’re human.” and this is true. This mistake could have happened to anyone anywhere and to make such a big deal out of it is simply ridiculous in my opinion. Congratulate the boy and don’t worry about making it a big deal.

Geoffrey Stanford’s teachers always tell him to read tests carefully.

Every sentence. Every word. Slow down. Make sure you understand what’s being asked, and then proceed.

So while taking his state writing test last week, the East High junior saw something that didn’t make sense: The word “emission” — as in “the emission of greenhouse gases” — was spelled “omission.”

“I thought, ‘Surely they’re not talking about leaving out carbon dioxide altogether.’ It just didn’t make sense,” said Stanford, 17. “It had to be a mistake.”

It was.

Read more at Kansas.com about how this student caught something test developers and teachers had missed. Soon, our very own Becca Driskill, an international baccaulaureate classmate of Stanford’s, will have her reaction.