In a controversial move, the New York City Department of Education recently released information concerning individual teachers in the district and their ratings, based on a value-added analysis. This analysis was used to determine how effective each teacher is at helping students improve on standardized tests. More than 12,000 teachers’ ratings were released and of the teachers taught either English or math for students between fourth and eight grade.

Some people are quite upset by this release of data. The United Federation of Teachers has started an advertising campaign and is placing ads in newspapers across New York City. The ads state “This is No Way to Rate a Teacher!” and show a complicated math formula that is supposedly used to rate the teachers. The ads also feature a letter from the organization’s president, Michael Mulgrew, in which the president outlines all of the reasons why the data is faulty and should not be relied on. Read the rest of this entry »

Small class sizes, new textbooks, effective teachers and monetary funding are all among the needs to make public schools successful, but none of it matters if students aren’t showing up. This was the case in New York according to recent studies showing evidence of decreasing attendance at public schools. In 1995, 1 in 9 elementary school students were absent every day. Recent efforts focused on attendance caused that number to drop to 1 in 15 in 2011.

To combat the epidemic of absenteeism, a multitude of creative efforts have been implemented by New York City officials. Students receive automated wake up calls from celebrities, such as Magic Johnson, reminding them to make it to school. Other incentives include receiving prizes for consistent attendance.

Read the rest of this entry »

What do a small mining town in the Adirondacks and a group of international high school exchange students have in common? Maybe nothing, but the combination is proving to be a successful experience for Newcomb, New York, and international students eager to learn outside of their home country.

The idea was born when Superintendent Clark Hults was fearful of the dropping population in his town and at the only local school. 55 students, from pre-kindergarten to 12th grade, were enrolled in 2006. This was a major drop from the 1,500 enrolled in the 1980s. Hults knew that if the school closed, the town would suffer, so he drafted an ambitious proposal.

Inspired by the number of students who study internationally every year, Hults decided to open up the opportunity for a local economy boosting, educationally enriching experiment. His theories proved true and students began arriving from all over the world. Iraq, Vietnam, France, Russia, Israel and Lebanon are all countries currently represented by Newcomb students. Enrollment is currently at 85 students, 30 of them exchange students, and still growing.

Read the rest of this entry »

The North Collins Elementary School in New York has ignored the requests of students and parents to bring back the full Pledge of Allegiance. Each morning, the students are prompted with the first six words of the pledge, “I pledge allegiance to the flag” before the intercom system is turned off. School officials maintain that it’s more time efficient and better for the students to let them continue the pledge at their own pace. Students and parents believe they are missing out on a certain level of patriotism that should be present at school.

Perhaps it would be easier to understand if the students didn’t spend the time every day (in unison, over the intercom) to recite the school’s “character pledge.” Some people are concerned that the priorities presented here are a little twisted.

One such person, Rosemary Troidl, received countless complaints about the policy from students and parents. After learning that the school still refused to change its policy, Troidl resigned from her position as Board Member. She said, “What upsets me is that the people made such a simple request. They weren’t asking for anything other than giving the Pledge of Allegiance the same amount of respect as the character pledge. But I knew they (the board) weren’t going to do anything.” Read the rest of this entry »

Teenage girls who put suggestive photos on Facebook, some might say, are just asking for inappropriate comments from people they are “friends” with, but imagine the shock some Bronx, New York high school students had when they saw comments like “this is sexy” from their teacher!

Recently fired Fordham High School art teacher Chadwin Reynolds, according to the NY Post, was terminated because he “friended” students and wrote inappropriate comments on six of his students’ Facebook pages.

If that wasn’t enough, 37-year-old Reynolds even tried to court one of his students by sending her flowers, a stuffed animal and candy, and asking her for her phone number. Read the rest of this entry »

Former head of the EPA Christine Todd Whitman.

Christine Todd Whitman was born to Webster and Eleanor Todd on September 26, 1946 in New York City. She grew up in New Jersey, and was a student at Far Hills Country School as well as Chapin School in New York City.

She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Wheaton College in 1968, and shortly following graduation, she began work on Nelson Rockefeller’s presidential bid.

Whitman is a descendant of two of New Jersey’s most powerful political families, the Todds and the Schleys, and she married John R. Whitman with whom she had two children. Read the rest of this entry »

Student at Manhattan Free School

57 year-old Pat Werner is the principal at The Manhattan Free School in East Harlem, New York, and while the school is anything but free, she might as well be.

With 18 years of experience in the New York public school sector, Werner’s salary last year was a mere $3,000. While society recognizes that education professionals are grossly underpaid and over worked, $3,000 is unfathomable.

But it was Werner’s choice to accept that minimal pay. Her school is all about idealistic Utopian education and learning for the sake of learning. The students at her school are taught to only learn what they feel like learning, with no tests or grades given. Read the rest of this entry »

Donald Trump is known today as one of the leading businessmen in the United States. He is an author, television personality, businessman, and real estate developer. How did Donald Trump rise to such successes? We at EDUinReview would like to take a minute and exam the educational background of this multi-billionaire.

Trump was born on June 14, 1946 in New York. He was the fourth of five children in his family.

Trump attended The Kew-Forest School in Forest Hills, Queens until he was 13 years old. Then, after causing some trouble at The Kew-Forest School, his parents transferred him to the New York Military Academy. Trump excelled in academics and sports while at NYMA. He earned many academic honors, was a member of the varsity football team in 1962, the varsity soccer team in 1963, and the varsity baseball team from 1962-1964. He was also the Cadet Captin-S4 (Cadet Battalion Logistics Officer) and lead his school in the Memorial Day parade down Fifth Avenue in 1964.

After high school, Trump attended Fordham University for two years. He then transferred to the Wharton Business School, where he graduated in 1968 with a Bachelor of Science in Economics and a concentration in finance. Read the rest of this entry »

Some say that beauty pageant contestants aren’t exactly the smartest girls in the world, but Rima Fakih, the 2010 Miss USA, easily proves them wrong.

Fakih immigrated to Queens, New York in 1993 with her family when she was seven years old from Sour, Lebanon. She attended St. John’s Preparatory School and graduated in 2003, when she was only 17 years old.

After she graduated, Fakih attended the University of Michigan. While in college, Fakih earned her bachelor of arts in economics, and also earned a minor in business administration. Read the rest of this entry »

UPDATE [1/27/11]: President Obama discussed the success of Race to the Top in his State of the Union address on January 25th. “Race to the Top in the most meaningful reform of our public schools in a generation. For less than one percent of what we spend on education each year, it has led over 40 states to raise their standards for teaching and learning…and Race to the Top should be the approach we follow this year as we replace No Child Left Behind with a law that’s more flexible and focused on what’s best for our kids.” Since the program’s initiation, it has help 25,000 schools nationwide and 13.6 million students, according to White House statistics.

School budgets have been stretched tight with the nation’s recent economic recession. Last year in my hometown, Wichita, KS, several schools were forced to give up yearly field trips. And this year, the school district is proposing to do away with driver’s education. Hopefully with Obama’s Race to the Top competition, some states will be able to lessen this financial strain.

As of July 27, eighteen states and the District of Columbia could win part of the $3.4 billion in education grants to assist in an overhaul of education policies.

In this second round of the competition, federal officials say they anticipate 10 to 15 winners that will receive federal financing. The winning states will be revealed in September.

Here are the 19 finalists: Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and South Carolina. Read the rest of this entry »