There is a certain level of disconnect with reality in the citizenry of the United States. We pat ourselves on the back, proudly boasting that we are “the best country in the world.” And while that may be true to some extent – people have amazing opportunities and freedoms here – an inability to see that it might be possible that we aren’t always the best in everything we do may be holding us back. Nowhere is that more true than the United States’ lagging educational system.

According to a 2006 investigation by the ABC program 20/20, a Gallup Poll survey showed that 76 percent of Americans were completely or somewhat satisfied with their kids’ public school.

Now, here comes the disconnect:

In 2002, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) issued a report on the state of education in 24 industrialized nations. The United States ranked 18th out of 24 nations. The report was based on results from three surveys that tested 14- and 15-year-old’s literacy and their abilities in essential mathematics and science.

“A child starting school in Canada, Finland, or South Korea has both a higher probability of reaching a given level of educational achievement and a lower probability of falling well below the average,” UNICEF said in a written statement.

Let that sink in for a moment. We’re in the bottom 25th percentile for education. Read the rest of this entry »

President Obama’s health care program may not be popular among certain Americans, but his desire to eliminate summer vacation will render him an easy target among all American school children.

Earlier this year we reported that President Obama proposed longer school days, and recent buzz indicates he’s still at it. The President wants American children to be better prepared to compete with children worldwide who spend on average 30 percent more time in school than American kids. Along with his Education Secretary Arne Duncan, President Obama believes that the current American academic calendar year is antiquated and was created when the country was primarily an agrarian culture; but since very few families toil in the fields all day, the Obama Administration is on a quest to develop the minds of American children by extending their time in school in order to keep them on par with the minds of millions of children around the globe. Read the rest of this entry »

Sonic, America’s Favorite Drive-In, has launched a new campaign aimed at benefiting public school teachers and their students around the country. The “Limeades for Learning” program allows any customer the opportunity to vote for their favorite teacher’s project and secure a chance to win $200 to $400 towards a grant to complete the proposed idea.

In partnership with DonorsChoose.org, Sonic is donating more than half a million dollars towards projects that receive the most votes. All you have to do is head over to your nearest Sonic restaurant, order a beverage (Sonic premium roast coffee-based drinks and Whacky Pack meal drinks are excluded) and vote on your favorite teacher’s project. Read the rest of this entry »

Just like Blair on Gossip Girl has dreamed of going to Yale since childhood, many students simply won’t be happy unless they are accepted to an Ivy League school. Some are driven since birth to maintain a perfect educational reputation, and some will do whatever it takes to attend the school of their dreams. In the end, is it worth the extreme hard work and dedication? After all, what’s in a name, as long as you get a top education and don’t owe more than what your parent’s house is worth when it is all said and done.

Read the rest of this entry »

The New York school system is going to experiment within the education system. Now, when I say experiment, I don’t mean testing on the students, but rather they are testing the age-old question of teacher quality versus small class sizes and cutting age technologies.

A school in NYC, which has been dubbed the Equity Project, is being comprised of eight super-star teachers. This eight person educational force will consist of teachers that truly excel at inspiring their students. When interviewing possible teachers, the creators of the school looked for teachers that were able to get the students excited about their schoolwork.  Read the rest of this entry »

My dad sent me this email the other day about friends. It really makes you think about how important your friends have been and always will be, even if you are graduating and moving to different states or won’t see each other for a few months over summer.

In kindergarten your idea of a good friend was the person who let you have the red crayon when all that was left was the ugly black one.

In first grade your idea of a good friend was the person who went to the bathroom with you and held your hand as you walked through the scary halls. Read the rest of this entry »

State education leaders forged a compromise Friday on the teaching of evolution in Texas, adopting a new science curriculum that no longer requires educators to teach the weaknesses of all scientific theories.

The State Board of Education voted 13-2 to put in place a plan that would instead require teachers to encourage students to scrutinize “all sides” of scientific theories, a move criticized by evolution proponents.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, which will be in place for the next decade, governs what teachers are required to cover in the classroom, the topics students are tested on and the material published in textbooks. Read the rest of this entry »

Students attending Brooklyn’s new City Polytechnic High School of Engineering, Architecture and Technology (opening Fall 2009) will graduate with both a high school diploma and an Associate’s degree. It’s a progressive approach to high school education that New York City schools chancellor Joel I. Klein says is “long overdue.”

The school is offering a five-year secondary education with its curriculum based on career and technical education with advanced courses like computer systems and architectural technology being taught at the New York City College of Technology.

City Polytechnic students will be able to start taking college-level classes during their third year, followed by attending classes in person at the College of Technology. This approach is the first of its kind, allowing students to take professional studies like construction management and IT, and will no doubt promote higher graduation rates, a simpler assimilation to college and a higher rate of college attendance and graduation.

Learn more at New York Times.

For this generation of students to remain competitive with their international peers as adults, they need to start spending more time in school. This week President Obama proposed that American school children extend their time in class, either by lengthening the school day, or spending less time on summer vacation.

“We can no longer afford an academic calendar designed when America was a nation of farmers who needed their children at home plowing the land at the end of each day,” Obama said. He continued to say “That calendar may have once made sense, but today, it puts us at a competitive disadvantage. Our children spend over a month less in school than children in South Korea. That is no way to prepare them for a 21st century economy.” Read the rest of this entry »

Roughly one-fourth of the nation’s kindergartners are Hispanic, evidence of an accelerating trend that now will see minority children become the majority by 2023.

Census data released Thursday also showed that Hispanics make up about one-fifth of all K-12 students. Hispanics’ growth and changes in the youth population are certain to influence political debate, from jobs and immigration to the No Child Left Behind education, for years.

In colleges, Hispanics made up 12 percent of full-time undergraduate and graduate students, 2 percent more than in 2006. Still, that is short of Hispanics’ 15 percent representation in the total U.S. population.

“The future of our education system depends on how we can advance Hispanics through the ranks,” said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “In many cases it’s going to be a challenge, because they are the children of immigrants, and their English is not as strong. Many have parents without a high school or college education.”

Read more from the Associated Press.