education

By LEN BOSELOVIC
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Wednesday, September 12, 2007

American parents are headed for trouble because they are using debt rather than savings to finance their children's college education, the College Savings Foundation reports.

The non-profit organization said Wednesday that 27 percent of the families it surveyed have saved nothing for college.

By BRITTANY ANAS
Scripps Howard News Service
Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Many educators and university officials nationwide are worried that grades alone are no longer accurate snapshots of how well students perform.

Propelling grade inflation in today's college classrooms could be the popularity of student reviews of faculty members, some higher-education officials and professors say.

By VERNE KOPYTOFF
San Francisco Chronicle
Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Yahoo Inc. is developing a free online service designed to make it easier for educators to create, find and share lesson plans, worksheets and ideas.

By JACKIE CROSBY
Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Kristin Riegel started researching colleges and universities when she was in the ninth grade.

But despite that running start, it was a consultant she and her family hired for $1,700 during her senior year who ultimately helped seal her decision to go to Macalester College in St.

By LISA HEYAMOTO
Sacramento Bee
Friday, August 17, 2007

Matt Goodwin is a hand-raiser. If he's in class and he knows the answer, up goes the hand and out come the words.

Except sometimes, the words don't come.

At times like that his hand stays pocketed; on days like that, his mouth stays closed.

Sacramento Bee
Friday, August 17, 2007

FACTS ABOUT STUTTERING

The biggest hurdle stutterers face is a general lack of knowledge about the speech disorder. A few things you should know:

-- No one is exactly sure what causes a stutter, but it's thought to be a combination of genetics (60 percent of stutters have a family member who stutters), early childhood environment and stutterers processing language in a different part of their brain.

-- There are three types of stuttering: a repetition of a sound (as in t-t-t-t), a prolongation of a sound (lllll-) or what's called a stuck block, when no sound comes out.

-- More boys than girls tend to stutter.

-- 80 percent of children will outgrow stuttering, but chances become slimmer if the child starts after the age of 3.

-- Kids have a better chance of overcoming a stutter if it's addressed right away.

-- The best way to respond when someone is stuttering is to slow down the pace of the conversation and react to what the person says, not how they say it.

-- Don't look horrified when someone stutters, and don't tell them to slow down or finish their sentences for them.

-- Stuttering is a speech disorder, not a mental disorder.

For more information, visit www.stutteringhelp.org.

NOTABLE STUTTERERS

James Earl Jones: The famously sonorous actor is a lifelong stutterer who learned to control his speech through acting lessons and reading his own poetry aloud.

By LINDSAY MELVIN
Scripps Howard News Service
Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Alex Carpenter never worried about running out of ink or lumbering home with a backpack full of textbooks.

Since seventh grade, everything the recent graduate from Lausanne Collegiate School done -- from art projects to science experiments -- has revolved around his laptop.

HASSLE-FREE HOMEWORK

By Dr. YVONNE FOURNIER
Scripps Howard News Service

Dear Dr. Fournier:
My child hates reading. She has not picked up one book so far this summer. I love to read and cannot understand why my daughter does not enjoy it. I have taken her to the library and she checks out books but never reads them. How can I get her to read for pleasure?

By ELEANOR CHUTE
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Monday, June 04, 2007

At high schools across the country, more and more students are graduating with grade-point averages of A, including some whose averages are well above the traditional 4.0 for an A.

Grades -- some weighted with extra points or fractions of points for taking harder courses -- are getting so high that a solid B is becoming the new C, which years ago was considered average.

There's no one reason grades have gone up.

By NORMAN DRAPER
Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
Thursday, May 31, 2007

Brian Johnson is the last of a vanishing breed

The 18-year-old senior is thevaledictorian at Lakeville South High School in the Minneapolis area..

But next year, Lakeville South will scrap the valedictorian honor.