Posts Tagged ‘Education’
Saturday, September 21st, 2019
According to a survey from the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, only two out of every five Americans could name all three branches of the federal government and one in five couldn’t name even a single branch. This is better than it has been in past years, but the survey unequivocally shows that Americans really need to know more than they do about how their country works. Fortunately, there is a solution.
High school civics classes, as you’d expect, make a big difference in an adult’s knowledge on the topic. With that in mind, Florida Representative Alcee L. Hastings, along with 62 cosponsors, has introduced a bill to allocate additional funding for civics classes as a means of addressing this issue. Rep. Hastings, however, is not the only one tackling the problem. The Center for Cartoon Studies might seem an unlikely ally in the push to increase civics awareness, but they could very well be the key to getting kids — and adults — up to speed on the way government works.
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Tags: civics, comics, democracy, Education, government, laws, lesson plans, politics, sausages, webcomics
Posted in Education, Entertainment, Legislation, Politics | No Comments »
Thursday, February 9th, 2012
Generally speaking, in order to get an “A” grade, you have to demonstrate that not only did you learn the material but that you demonstrated an understanding far beyond what was expected for the course. You could say that someone deserving of an “A” would know the material so well that they wouldn’t even make careless mistakes on a test — the material would be far too simple to provide any wrong answers. In the case of a school, an “A” would mean that the school is turning out students who not only meet the standards but go well beyond them. But what do you do if your schools aren’t performing so well and you still want to say they get an “A”? Well, if you’re the Public Education Department in New Mexico, you redefine what it means to get an “A”.
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Tags: Education, grades, nclb, new mexico, no child left behind, public schools, reform, schools
Posted in Education, Parenting Issues, Politics | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 29th, 2011
One of the biggest parenting challenges, at least in our house, is homework. Perhaps not so much in terms of having the kids learn and understand the material — although that can be a challenge too — but just getting kids to sit down, focus on their work, and get it done. For us, this involves a lot of whining, wailing, and general gnashing of teeth. And the kids don’t enjoy it either. To make matters worse, my oldest will be entering 4th grade next year and the amount of homework sent home is reportedly kicked up a notch. If we lived in Los Angeles, however, it wouldn’t be a problem anymore.
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Tags: Education, homework, jobs, los angeles, school, schoolwork
Posted in Education, Parenting Issues | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 25th, 2011
Kids like critters. Even the ones that say they don’t like them or who are scared of them are generally fascinated by them, if they can view them from an appropriate distance. So, of course, they make for great lessons — lessons the students won’t soon forget. After a day with non-human guests in the classroom, kids will rush home to breathlessly tell their parents that a lizard’s tail can grow back or that snakes lay eggs like a chicken. So why would anyone get upset about a lesson featuring geckos and clownfish?
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Tags: clownfish, Education, fish, gender, glbt, lgbt, lizard, nature, oakland, schools
Posted in Education, Parenting Issues, Religion, Sex | 3 Comments »
Saturday, May 21st, 2011
I gather it’s not easy being gay in Tennessee. If you listen to country music, most of it seems to be about the value and nobility of small town life — hard labor, cheap beer, and church on Sunday. There’s not much room in there for difference, let alone anything not considered manly. It seems the rest of the state isn’t much different from Nashville’s music. The state senate has recently approved a bill that would prevent teachers from discussing anything related to homosexuality before the ninth grade.
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Tags: censorship, Education, glbt, law, lgbt, schools, star trek, tennessee
Posted in Education, Legislation, Parenting Issues, Politics | No Comments »
Sunday, January 2nd, 2011
At the start of the New Year, it’s traditional for people to make sweeping statements about how they plan to improve themselves or their situation in the coming year. I could certainly do that — I definitely need to lose weight, I’d like to yell at the kids a little less, I really ought to work more on getting my book published — but that would only benefit me or, at most, my family. So I thought I’d take a look at the big picture and come up with some resolutions that will help kids all over.
So with that in mind, here is A Parent’s New Year’s Resolutions for 2011:
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Tags: bullying, Education, equality, health, healthcare, holidays, jobs, New Year's, resolutions, safety, schools
Posted in Education, Holidays, LGBT Parenting, Money and Finance, Parenting Issues, Parenting News, Politics, Religion, Safety | No Comments »
Saturday, January 1st, 2011
Remember the bit I posted a while back about autism causing whooping cough? Some parents, afraid that vaccines caused autism despite plentiful evidence to the contrary and even outright debunking of the original “study” that first made the claim, have been deciding not to get their children immunized, including opting out of the whooping cough vaccine. Not surprisingly, that resulted in an increase in the incidence of the disease. That won’t be happening in California any more, however, thanks to a new law going into effect.
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Tags: autism, diseases, drugs, Education, health, law, pertussis, school, vaccines, whooping cough
Posted in Education, Health, Parenting Issues, Vaccines | No Comments »
Friday, December 17th, 2010
Imagine losing a child — a teenager who is an intelligent, beautiful person with a great future ahead of them. Imagine losing that child not because of some accident of nature or incurable disease but because of something easily preventable. Imagine losing your child because of the thoughtlessness of their peers and the indifference of their teachers. Wendy Walsh doesn’t have to imagine it; she lives it every day.
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Tags: bullying, discrimination, Education, glbt, lgbt, safety, schools, suicide
Posted in Education, LGBT Parenting, Parenting Issues, Parenting News, Safety | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 7th, 2010
One would like to think that we’ve evolved beyond the use of corporal punishment in our public schools but it appears that’s not entirely true. Even if teachers aren’t rapping on knuckles with wooden rulers, some are still using pain and humiliation in order to maintain order and instill discipline. Not surprisingly, some parents take offense at this.
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Tags: corporal punishment, discipline, Education, punishment, school, tape, utah
Posted in Discipline, Education, Parenting Issues | No Comments »
Friday, December 3rd, 2010
As insane as it might seem, when times are tough, economically, it’s always education — the future of our society, our country, even our species — that seems to get cut first. School nurses get laid off, along with librarians and counselors. Art classes are pretty much gone, as are the band and orchestras of our youth. There’s no money for after school activities and lunches are made off-site and trucked in like military MREs. Now, however, a California court has ruled that there is one part of the school day that simply can’t be cut, regardless of how bad a fiscal crisis a school district is facing.
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Tags: budgets, Education, law, physical education, school, sports
Posted in Education, Parenting Issues, Politics | No Comments »
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