What do you think about private money in public schools? Or about public money in private schools?
Posted by Parker Fulton
Image from EducationNews.org
Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. - Nelson Mandela
A recent article from educationnews.org, "School Choice Kids Graduate Earlier in Baltimore," highlights two different programs that are infusing private money into public schools. Each donor (or foundation) gets to dictate how money is spent, and - at least in Baltimore - it seems to be working.
What do you think about private money in public schools? Or about public money in private schools? Posted by Parker Fulton Image from EducationNews.org
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Since 2011 Chilean students have used their creativity and resilience to captivate the nation with their demands for education reform. The students are ultimately aiming to change the expensive and highly privatized education system that is largely dominated by for-profit schools. They are working to have free public higher education and to end all for-profit K-12 schools.
The Chilean students have used unusual measures to attract attention toward their demands for a reformed education system. The students danced Michael Jackson's "Thriller" dance to represent the dead education system. The students hosted a Besaton or a Kiss-a-Thon for 1,800 seconds and ran for 1,800 hours to represent the $1,800 million it would cost for the government annually to finance higher education for 300,000 students. Interested in how the education movement began in Chile? Here is more about the beginnings of the movement and one of the original leaders, Camila Vallejo. Posted by Katie Steefel Arizona State University is offering guaranteed admission to and full credit for a host of freshman courses through its new Global Freshman Academy program. College can be more accessible and more attainable: You can view the web version of the story here. Posted by Parker Fulton
Image from asu.edu Last Monday, EPOG Co-Presidents Parker and Katie attended a partnership meeting at the University of Denver Morgridge College of Education. The meeting's focus was to explore ways in which DU faculty and student groups can assist the facilitation of George Washington High School's One George initiative. Representatives at the meeting included individuals from the Sturm College of Law, the Morgridge College of Education, the Center for Multicultural Excellence, DU's Interdisciplinary Research Incubator for the Study of (In)Equality (IRISE), DU's Public Achievement Program, and George Washington High School.
The guiding principles of the One George initiative are:
If you are interested in getting involved, you can also contact EPOG. Posted by Parker Fulton Posted by Haley DiRenzo Students in the Denver Community know their voices matter and they are capable of making a change.
Students at South High School, STRIVE Preparatory School, and Cole Elementary school work with college students at the University of Denver through the school's Public Achievement Program. Public Achievement is a student empowerment program that pairs younger students with college students who mentor and support them in creating yearlong community projects. While college students are there to assist the younger students, the projects that Public Achievement students build are self-identified and self-led. Building these community projects empowers students to understand that there is a space for them to make positive change in the community. Students from South High School are working on projects centered on racial discrimination this year. Some students are focusing on sharing stories through the media, and have created a “Humans of Denver South High School” Facebook page to share people’s experiences with discrimination in their community. Students are also working on a documentary to address this topic and hope to post it on their page when they are finished. Like their Facebook page here to follow their efforts and learn more about their project. Other students through University of Denver’s Public Achievement program are working on projects addressing hunger and restorative justice in their schools. To learn more about these students and their projects, download their Public Achievement Newsletter here. EPOG will post any upcoming Public Achievement events so that our readers can support local students in the Denver community. Congratulations to the members of the Denver Urban Debate League (DUDL) who competed in the National Association for Urban Debate Leagues (NAUDL) Championship last week in Los Angeles! The teams did great with one team making it to the the elimination rounds and one of the debaters placed 14th as a speaker. If you'd like to learn more about DUDL, you can check them out here and make sure to like them on Facebook! Posted by Ali Sheets.
"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." - William Butler Yeats4/15/2015 Long before we were in law school, Michelle Obama was standing up for racial and gender equality in higher education. While attending Harvard Law, she gathered data and shared her experience with the lack of diversity in the faculty.
The article below reminded me of the importance of providing students with relevant role models in all their endeavors. How do we encourage young students to become educators? How do we make sure that hiring practices reflect the need for diversity in the classroom? As Dr. Duncan-Andrade puts it—how do we get those roses that make it to come back to the concrete? http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/03/michelle-obama-princeton-harvard-116390.html#.VS0I_hPF-4Q Posted by Liz Weil Want a way to become involved in discussions about education? Great Education Colorado presents an opportunity for meaningful dialogue about education.
The “Common Ground on Common Core” conversations represent an effort to provide a forum for people to host productive dialogue on education. During this series of seven 2-hour conversations (where participants attend one conversation, each with 10-15 different people), individuals with diverse views will be able to discuss their views and values in a confidential and informal environment. The goal is not to build consensus on these contentious issues. Rather, the conversations will engage people who are eager both to hear and be heard in facilitated dialogue that uncovers values and opinions where consensus may already exist underneath the public vitriol. Sign up here to participate in the discussions! Posted by Katie Steefel. In 2001, Texas was the first state to pass a bill allowing undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition for college. Today, there are eighteen states – including Colorado – that allow undocumented students to pay in-state tuition, and a few of those states even allow undocumented students to qualify for state aid. Because undocumented students, commonly referred to as “Dreamers,” cannot supplement their educational costs through federal or private loans, many have shared that the ability to pay in-state tuition can be the difference between gaining a college degree or not.
The Texas legislature is currently considering repealing the law that allows Dreamers who have lived in the State of Texas for a certain number of years to pay in-state tuition at Texas universities. While students who are already benefiting from these laws will be “grandfathered” in, students who could benefit in the future will not be able to receive the in-state tuition price if the law is repealed. Proponents of the current law advocate for it because they argue that without it there would not be a plausible way for many Dreamers to earn college degrees. They stress that undocumented students deserve opportunities to earn college degrees, and also that those Dreamers are often motivated to earn degrees by the prospects of being able to give back to their communities. Opponents of the current law argue that it encourages illegal immigration to the United States, and that states have an obligation to take care of citizen students first. On Tuesday, April 7, a subcommittee voted to move forward with repealing the law, and efforts toward repeal will now move to a full committee vote. There are many petitions circulating the internet asking Texas state legislators to rethink this repeal. While the core concern for many of these people is helping students in Texas who might lose the ability to pay in-state tuition, there are additional concerns. For example, if Texas does repeal this law, what will that mean for the other seventeen states that have similar provisions? Will repealing the law in Texas influence other states to do the same? Read more about the issue here. We would love to hear your thoughts or stories. Posted by Haley DiRenzo. Last week, National Public Radio posted two articles about the nature and importance of community in K-12 schools.
At a casual glance, the two articles may not appear to be closely related. The first article is about the national costs of teacher turnover, and the second is about a school in Southern Oregon where students are themselves responsible for the cleanliness and upkeep of their school. On the surface, each story could easily turn on a question about money: where's it going, and why? Just under the surface, though, there may be a deeper question: who belongs? As the first article suggests, teacher pay is likely not a predominating factor in the grand scheme of turnover. Many new teachers leave the profession because they feel they lack voice, autonomy, and/or empathetic support . . . because they feel detached from any sense of community and deprived of the many benefits a sense of community can (and should) provide. Similarly, in the second article, the question arises: whose community is it? A perfunctory look at schools can show that their aesthetic qualities often correlate to their success. In a very general sense, successful schools tend to be well kept, and unsuccessful schools tend to be unkempt. People take pride in and relate to the characteristics of their communities, and it appears that a little autonomous responsibility might just go a long way: Revolving Door Of Teachers Costs Schools Billions Every Year (Photo credit.) Without Janitors, Students Are In Charge Of Keeping School Shipshape What do you think? Posted by Parker Fulton. |
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