Seattle Schools Community Forum: Public Education News Round-up

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Public Education News Round-up:

Public Education News Round-up

I'm leaving out opting out and charter schools stories; they need threads of their own.

Over in Pasco, they are so desperate for teachers they have a $1,000 training program to become one for their schools.  I was not aware of this program.

The Professional Development Program that helps train people without education degrees to become teachers costs $1,000. However, candidates do not have to pay the money up front. Instead, they can have that money deducted from a series of paychecks and pay it over time.

Remember how crummy American kids are at math?  Not the elite students who are growing in power and numbers.  From The Atlantic (and you should check out the photographs of the kids in this article:

Stoner and five teammates were representing the United States in the 56th International Mathematical Olympiad. Still, it was hard to know how his team had stacked up against those from the perennial powers China, Russia, and South Korea.  For the first time in 21 years, the United States team had won first place. Speaking last fall from his dorm at Harvard, where he is now a freshman, Stoner recalled his team’s triumph with quiet satisfaction. “It was a really great moment. Really great. Especially if you love math.”

It also wasn’t an aberration. You wouldn’t see it in most classrooms, you wouldn’t know it by looking at slumping national test-score averages, but a cadre of American teenagers are reaching world-class heights in math—more of them, more regularly, than ever before.

"..gifted-and-talented programs, which are publicly funded and can start in elementary school. But the history of these programs is fraught. Admission criteria vary, but they have tended to favor affluent children.  As a result, while many such programs still Seattle Schools Community Forum: Public Education News Round-up: