Claudio Sanchez

30 Years On, Educators Still Divided On Scathing Schools Report

Claudio Sanchez — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 21:32:00 +0000

Thirty years ago this week, President Ronald Reagan's administration released "A Nation at Risk," a report warning of "a rising tide of mediocrity" in American public education.

According to the report, only one-third of 17-year-olds in 1983 could solve a math problem requiring two steps or more, and 4 out of 10 teenagers couldn't draw inferences from written material.

'Core Curriculum' Puts Education Experts At Odds

Claudio Sanchez — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 08:58:00 +0000

At 2 p.m., it's crunchtime for students who write for The Harbinger Online, the award-winning, student news site at Shawnee Mission East High just outside Kansas City, Kan.

El Paso Schools Cheating Scandal Probes Officials' Accountability

Claudio Sanchez — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 21:30:00 +0000

No one knows if Atlanta's school superintendent or any of the people accused of falsifying test results will go to jail, but they wouldn't be the first if they do.

Lorenzo Garcia, the former superintendent of schools in El Paso, Texas, has been sitting in a federal prison since last year.

Study: More Adult Pell Grant Students, Not Enough Graduating

Claudio Sanchez — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 12:08:00 +0000

The federal government each year gives needy college students billions of dollars they don't have to pay back — $34.5 billion to be exact. More than 9 million students rely on the Pell Grant program. But a new study says much of the money is going to people who never graduate.

Sandy Baum, an expert on student financial aid, has been leading a group in a study of the 48-year-old Pell Grant program.

Race, Poverty Central To National School-Closure Debate

Claudio Sanchez — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 10:22:00 +0000

In Chicago, parents are fighting to prevent the city from closing 54 public schools.

Sequester Spells Uncertainty For Many Public Schools

Claudio Sanchez — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 21:59:00 +0000

If Congress and the Obama administration can't agree on a budget deal by Friday, the federal government will be forced to cut $85 billion from just about every federally funded program. Every state could lose federal aid, and a myriad of government programs could shut down or curtail services — and that includes the nation's public schools.

There is one bit of good news for schools: Because most federal aid to schools is forward-funded, the cuts triggered by sequestration would not hit classrooms until September at the earliest.

Union Backs 'Bar Exam' For Teachers

Claudio Sanchez — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 21:35:00 +0000

The system for preparing and licensing teachers in the U.S. is in such disarray that the American Federation of Teachers is proposing a "bar exam" similar to the one lawyers have to pass before they can practice.

Currently, there's a patchwork of different certification requirements that vary state by state. There's no single standard to determine who's fit and who's not fit to teach.

In California, Parents Trigger Change At Failing School

Claudio Sanchez — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 08:15:00 +0000

Parents in one small California community have used a "parent-trigger" law for the first time to shut down and take over an elementary school.

Online Courses Force Changes To Higher Education

Claudio Sanchez — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 13:32:00 +0000

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

There is a lot of speculation now about what issues - big and small - the Obama administration should tackle in its second term. Education is one thing on many of those lists, and in Washington yesterday, the talk was about one of the hottest trends in the field - something called MOOCS.

Firestorm Erupts Over Virginia's Education Goals

Claudio Sanchez — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 20:05:00 +0000

As part of Virginia's waiver to opt out of mandates set out in the No Child Left Behind law, the state has created a controversial new set of education goals that are higher for white and Asian kids than for blacks, Latinos and students with disabilities.

Virginia Democratic state Sen.

With Varied Approach, Candidates Push School Choice

Claudio Sanchez — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 10:17:00 +0000

The right to choose the school you want your child to attend has been the subject of court battles and bitter political debates. Still, both President Obama and GOP challenger Mitt Romney have made school choice a cornerstone of their efforts to reform public education.

Romney says he wants to give every student trapped in a failing school the chance to attend a better school.

Obama, Romney On Higher Ed Help: Dueling Visions

Claudio Sanchez — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 21:12:00 +0000

Many Americans today feel like they've lost or are losing their shot at a college education because paying for it often seems out of reach. So how big of an issue is this in the presidential campaign?

Here's what President Obama has done to help families pay for college: He negotiated a deal with Congress this summer that kept the interest rate on government-backed Stafford loans from doubling for 7.5 million students.

Obama's income-based repayment plan will eventually cap students' loan payments at 10 percent of discretionary monthly income.

Parsing Fact From Fiction In 'Won't Back Down'

Claudio Sanchez — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 07:24:00 +0000

Won't Back Down opens with a little girl's anguished face. It fills the entire screen. The camera hovers as she struggles to read a simple sentence on the blackboard out loud.

She's dyslexic. Not that anyone at Adams Elementary cares — least of all her second-grade teacher, who is berating or slapping kids around when she's not shopping for shoes online.

But if it was your kid who was struggling and nobody at school cared, what would you do? What could you do?

Teachers Unions At A Crossroad

Claudio Sanchez — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 09:18:00 +0000

Transcript

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

On the face of it, the teacher's strike in Chicago is about money, job security and how teachers are evaluated. But it's also about the political pressure on teachers' unions to make concessions that not long ago would've been unheard of. Teachers' collective bargaining rights these days have taken a backseat to bare-bones budgets and to claims that unions are an obstacle to efforts aimed at improving the quality of schools.

From A Single Charter School, A Movement Grows

Claudio Sanchez — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 10:24:00 +0000

City Academy in St. Paul, Minn., became the nation's first publicly funded, privately run charter school when it opened its doors in 1992. Its founders, all veteran public school teachers, had tried but failed to create new programs for struggling students in their own schools.

The school helped launch a movement that has since grown to 5,600 charter schools across the U.S. But back in the late 1980s, it faced strong resistance.

Milo Cutter, one of City Academy's founders, had grown frustrated at her old school, where kids dropped out in droves.

What's A Charter School If Not A Game Changer?

Claudio Sanchez — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 10:12:00 +0000

The charter school movement is now at a crossroads. More than 2 million students will be enrolled in charter schools in the fall — a big number for a movement that's barely 20 years old. The publicly funded, privately run schools have spread so fast, they operate more like a parallel school system in some places.

The intention was to create labs for education experimentation. But the quality of charters and their record of success are mixed. Sometimes, the results aren't much different from their public counterparts.

Online University For All Balances Big Goals, Expensive Realities

Claudio Sanchez — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 22:23:00 +0000

Naylea Omayra Villanueva Sanchez, 22, lives on the edge of the Amazon rain forest in Tarapoto, northern Peru.

"Where I live, there's only jungle," Villanueva Sanchez says through an interpreter. "A university education is inaccessible."

And that's true in more ways than one.

Head Start To Absentee Dads: Please Come Back

Claudio Sanchez — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 19:51:00 +0000

It's a typical day at a Head Start center near downtown New Haven, Conn., and restless 3- and 4-year-olds squirm and bounce on a colorful shaggy rug vying for their teacher's attention. Down the hallway several women make their way to a parenting class, stopping to marvel at a 4-month-old baby.

What you don't see, says the center's Keith Young, is men, fathers.

"Head Start is not just about the child going to school, not just about the child.

Silicone Valley Firm To Help UVA Expand Oline Courses

Claudio Sanchez — Tue, 17 Jul 2012 08:48:00 +0000

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

And we're here next about a new educational partnership with Silicon Valley. It's what the University of Virginia. You may recall last month, UVA's board of governors fired and then rehired President Teresa Sullivan. One reason some board members say they called for her ouster in the first place was that she had not moved quickly enough to expand the university's online courses.

The Flip Side Of The Federal Student Loans Deal

Claudio Sanchez — Sat, 30 Jun 2012 09:55:00 +0000

It came down to the wire, but finally, Republicans and Democrats agreed on a deal that keeps the interest rate on government-backed student loans from doubling. It will save the average borrower about $1,000 a year, but the compromise is likely to cost students a lot more than that over the long term.

The agreement that lawmakers passed Friday will keep interest rates at 3.4 percent for another year.

What Title IX Didn't Change: Stigma About Shop Class

Claudio Sanchez — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 10:23:00 +0000

Forty years ago, President Richard Nixon signed Title IX, which said no person shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from any education program or activity. Vocational education courses that barred girls — such as auto mechanics, carpentry and plumbing — became available for everyone.

Grad Who Beat The Odds Asks, Why Not The Others?

Claudio Sanchez — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 06:53:00 +0000

Fewer than 5 percent of Americans had completed college when historian James Truslow Adams first coined the term "American dream" in 1931.

Today, many consider higher education the gateway to a better, richer and fuller life. But for many kids growing up in poverty, college might as well be Mars, and the American dream a myth.

Juan Carlos Reyes was once one of those kids. Today, he's a broad-shouldered young man, sporting a neatly trimmed beard.

Romney Declares National Education Emergency

Claudio Sanchez — Thu, 24 May 2012 08:48:00 +0000

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Mitt Romney laid out his education agenda on Wednesday. In a speech in Washington, he compared the American public education system to that of a third world country. But Romney's plan to deal with what he called a national education emergency does not appear to be a major departure from the policies that have been in place since 2001, under both Presidents Bush and Obama. NPR's Claudio Sanchez reports.

CLAUDIO SANCHEZ, BYLINE: As governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney supported the Bush-era reforms.

Cal State Faculty On Strike Amid A 'Scary Future'

Claudio Sanchez — Wed, 02 May 2012 21:48:00 +0000

California State University, the nation's largest four-year, public university system, is in trouble. Wednesday, professors authorized a strike over working conditions and pay, and students began a hunger strike demanding a tuition freeze.

The faculty authorization allows for two-day strikes at each of the schools in system, one after the other.

Negotiating The College Funding Labyrinth

Claudio Sanchez — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 05:36:00 +0000

Now that your child has gotten into college, have you figured out how much it's actually going to cost — and who's going to pay for it?

These questions are hitting college-bound students and their parents right about now, along with the other million questions that nobody seems to have straight answers for.

Now On The Menu For Hungry Kids: Supper At School

Claudio Sanchez — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 21:11:00 +0000

Not long after the start of the school year, Monique Sanders, a teacher at Nathan Hale Elementary School in Manchester, Conn., realized many of her students were going to bed hungry.

"It was very bad. I had parents calling me several times a week, asking did I know of any other way that they could get food because they had already gone to a food pantry," Sanders says.

Embattled D.C. School District Has A New Vibe

Claudio Sanchez — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 12:00:00 +0000

Transcript

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Scott Simon. A year and a half after Washington, D.C. and its hard-charging school chancellor Michelle Rhee parted ways, the policies that earned her national attention as a tough visionary reformer are under scrutiny. The teachers' union wants to revoke a performance evaluation policy that had been presented as a national model. A cheating scandal has cast doubt on D.C.'s impressive gains in test scores.

Under Scrutiny, Some Head Start Programs In Limbo

Claudio Sanchez — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 18:44:00 +0000

The Obama administration is calling for major changes in Head Start, the 46-year-old early childhood education program that helped launch President Johnson's War on Poverty.

President Obama says too many children today aren't learning, and too many education programs are mismanaged.

"We're not just going to put money into programs that don't work," the president announced late last year.

Case Renews Focus On Race In College Admissions

Claudio Sanchez — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 21:11:00 +0000

College and university presidents are wringing their hands over the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to revisit the issue of affirmative action next fall. Critics of racial preferences are thrilled because the court could significantly restrict the use of race in admissions, but proponents of affirmative action say this would be a huge setback for institutions struggling to diversify their student body.

Their biggest fear? That when the court decides Fisher v.

In Today's Economy, How Far Can A GED Take You?

Claudio Sanchez — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 10:30:00 +0000
Every year, roughly 750,000 high school dropouts try to improve their educational and employment prospects by taking the General Educational Development test, or GED, long considered to be the equivalent of a high school diploma.
The latest research, however, shows that people with GEDs are, in fact, no better off than dropouts when it comes to their chances of getting a good job.
This is raising lots of questions, especially in school districts with high dropout rates and rising GED enrollments.
A Second Chance, But Is It Enough?
The GED was created in 1942 for the U.