| Oklahoma continues to lead the nation in early childhood education
"Tulsa and Oklahoma have the leadership and the means to get in front of the parade in early-age education. It is a matter of will. National leadership in education in Tulsa, Oklahoma? Why not?" -- Tulsa World editorial, Jan. 6, 1991 Very few of our editorial challenges are met. This one was. Sixteen years after that editorial appeared, Oklahoma leads the nation in early childhood education, largely because of Tulsa. Jack Shonkoff, professor of child health and development and founding director of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, recently came to Tulsa to deliver that message. He told several hundred Tulsans attending a "Seed Sower" lecture at the University of Oklahoma here that Oklahoma educates more 4-year-old children than any other state.
US Programs- Program Assistant
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (www.gatesfoundation.org) works to promote greater equity in four areas: global health, education, public libraries, and support for at-risk families in Washington state and Oregon. The Seattle-based foundation joins local, national, and international partners to ensure that advances in these areas reach those who need them most. We are currently seeking a motivated and talented individual to join the US Programs Group as a Program Assistant. The U.S. Program focuses on addressing major inequities in the United States. A core component of the U.S. Program is our Education initiative, which is at an exciting point in its drive to ensure that all American children are ready for college, work, and citizenship. The U.S. Program also includes the Pacific Northwest initiative (community grants and family homelessness), U.S.
Financial Aid Officials Continue to Call on Congress to Support ...
RESTON, Va., March 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- In response to proposals in Washington to cut the private sector student lending program, financial aid administrators at colleges and universities across the country continue to voice their support of the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP). These comments from financial aid officials in support of the private sector student lending program echo those issued in similar news releases by Sallie Mae. The FFELP currently serves 80 percent of all students who borrow to pay for college and plays a crucial role in the delivery of aid and benefits to students and parents. Financial aid and school officials continue to speak out in support of the FFELP and called on Congress to support the private sector: "The FFELP program is an exceptional example of the way more federal programs should be administered -- a federal-private partnership.
Schools to help with sex education
In earlier years, the subject of sex and other related issues, were never discussed openly in schools. In fact, it was considered taboo to do so. Similar perspectives also existed within the homes of many students, which left a vacuum filled by other students who themselves were misguided and uninformed on the issues and left to the whims of speculation and experimentation. The emergence of the Internet, and the exposure of other cultural practices, further exacerbated the situation. Our children became more exposed to sexually explicit material. With this came many problems, increase in teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Informing students It's primarily because of these revelations that the Ministry of Education had engaged in the process of informing students, within certain parameters, explicitly, about prevention and other precautionary measures to be taken and educating them about the consequences of being promiscuous.
NIE helps build a lifetime reading habit
MOUNT VERNON — Newspaper In Education programs were first introduced in the 1930s as an educational partnership between newspapers and participating school systems, with the early programs aimed at secondary schools to teach current events. Today, NIE is an international program for students in preschool through college and beyond. More than 900 newspapers in the United States alone support NIE’s goal to build a lifetime reading habit among children and adults. Those publishers provide classrooms with newspapers, current, up-to-date resources for local, state and world news and issues. Many newspapers charge teachers for participating in the program and also charge for the costs of the papers, but the Mount Vernon News NIE program provides those resources at no cost to the teachers because it believes that an early habit of reading the newspaper helps individuals become informed, responsible citizens.
Benefits of PE go beyond the physical
Stretching out physical education time in schools is sometimes hard to do but local teachers are doing their best to provide programs that give students flexibility to choose what activities are interesting to them.
The California Endowment released a brief in January highlighting studies that show why there should be an increase in physical activity for children, especially in school physical education programs. Currently, the state mandates that high school students take two years of physical education and students in all levels are required to have 200 minutes of physical education every 10 days.
The benefits of physical education are not only physical but mental as well, according to the California Endowment brief. Local schools keep track of the correlation between physical activity and academic performance.
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