CNN.com - Inner-city students�learn the upscale art of debate - Jun 27, 2005

CNN.com - Inner-city students�learn the upscale art of debate - Jun 27, 2005: "ATLANTA, Georgia (AP) -- Adrienne Glover admits to getting emotional when her inner-city school's debate team faces experienced, well-funded squads from exclusive private schools.

The emotion? Joy.

'It's really fun when you beat them,' said Glover, 14, a student at Benjamin Mays High School in southwest Atlanta, where all the pupils are minorities and half qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. 'They think they're so good.'

Mays is part of the Urban Debate League -- part of a national program started by Atlanta's Emory University in 1985 that instructs public school students from poor areas in the traditionally upscale art of debate."

Use the link to read the entire article.

The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture

The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture: "SATURDAY, JUNE 25, 2005
GRAND OPENING of the Reginald F. Lewis Museum
Ceremony and festivities begin at 10:00 am"

The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture, located in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, will host its grand opening celebration beginning at 10:00 a.m. on June 25, 2005. Maryland’s newest cultural jewel and the east coast’s largest museum dedicated to African American history and culture will open with a program that includes dignitaries and history makers.

The Museum’s special exhibition gallery will open with the Mid-Atlantic debut of “A Slave Ship Speaks: The Wreck of the Henrietta Marie,” on view until January 8, 2006. Visitors to the museum also can experience a 200-seat theater, an orientation gallery, a state-of-the-art resource center, an oral history recording/listening studio, a distance learning center provided by Verizon Communications, a museum shop, a café and a roof top terrace.



HOURS OF OPERATION:
Tuesday-Sunday 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

The Museum is closed on Mondays and the following holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year‚s Day, and Easter Sunday.

MUSEUM GIFT SHOP:
Tuesday-Sunday 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

MUSEUM CAFÉ:
Tuesday-Sunday 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.


ADMISSION*:
Members - Free
Free Children 6 and Under - Free
General Admission - $8.00
Senior Citizen - $6.00
College Students (with valid ID) - $6.00


GROUP TOUR INFORMATION:
School Groups 443-263-1800

All other groups: To schedule a group tour, visitors should call the
museum at least 3 weeks in advance.


GROUP RATES*:
10 to 19 people - $5.00/per person
20 or more people - $4.00 per person

CNN.com - Mogul's literacy investment paying off - Jun 13, 2005

CNN.com - Mogul's literacy investment paying off - Jun 13, 2005: "CLEVELAND, Mississippi (AP) -- For Lester Fisher, it was a first, and a small sign of progress: Parents stopped him in the grocery store to talk about their children's love of books.

'Our kids really don't come from a literature-rich environment,' said Fisher, principal of Nailor Elementary -- considered the poorest school in this Mississippi Delta town. 'Many of our children really don't have the bare necessities at home.'

Nailor Elementary is one of 71 schools across the state seeing the benefits of literacy help offered by Barksdale Reading Institute, a computer mogul's ambitious program.

"

CNN.com - Report: Head Start has some benefits - Jun 10, 2005

CNN.com - Report: Head Start has some benefits - Jun 10, 2005: "Head Start helps poor, disadvantaged children narrow a gap in reading skills compared with other preschoolers, but the program doesn't help them catch up in math or their ability to comprehend what people say to them."

A Dollar in Any Language

A Dollar in Any Language: "The landscape of ethnic media has grown more crowded in recent years, reinforced by the same immigration patterns that are driving the nation's population growth. It has been particularly dynamic in the Washington area, with small outlets -- a newspaper that covers the Ghanaian community, for example, and a polyglot mix of local cable shows -- and major operators. The Washington Post Co. now owns the Spanish-language daily El Tiempo Latino; local companies like Black Entertainment Television parent BET Holdings Inc. and Radio One Inc. have grown into major corporations."

CNN.com - Philly schools to require African history class - Jun 9, 2005

CNN.com - Philly schools to require African history class - Jun 9, 2005: "PHILADELPHIA, Philadelphia (AP) -- City high school students will be required to take a class in African and African American history to graduate, a move that education experts believe is unique in the nation."

The yearlong course covers subjects including classical African civilizations, civil rights and black nationalism, said Gregory Thornton, the district's chief academic officer. The other social studies requirements are American history, geography and world history.

Hispanic Growth Surge Fueled by Births in U.S.

Hispanic Growth Surge Fueled by Births in U.S.: "Hispanics accounted for about half the growth in the U.S. population since 2000, according to a Census Bureau report to be released today that indicates the nation's largest minority group is increasing its presence even faster than in the previous decade.

In another contrast to the 1990s, births have overtaken immigration this decade as the largest source of Hispanic growth."

baltimoresun.com - Teacher's lessons include all pupils

baltimoresun.com - Teacher's lessons include all pupils: "nnamarie Windsor, a first-grade teacher at Edgewood Elementary, has an annual request that principals don't often hear: 'Give me the special-needs kids.'

In many cases, special-needs pupils require extra time and attention that teachers with large classes often don't have to give. This year, Windsor's 19-pupil class has five children who are working from individualized education plans, each with needs unique to his learning disabilities.

Windsor said she uses those needs as teaching tools.

'When kids come in with special needs or behavior problems, I'm the first to admit it's disruptive,' said Windsor, a nominee last year for Harford teacher of the year. 'These kids disrupt academics, but the learning continues. I teach the whole child, with books and without.'"

Matching boys with books | csmonitor.com

Matching boys with books | csmonitor.com: "If you want to get boys to read, assign F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby.' So say students at the all-boys Haverford School in suburban Philadelphia.

The reasons the boys give the novel high marks? It's short. Its characters and scenes move fast. The prose is terse, the style vivid and lively. Several male characters are 'at sea,' so to speak, despite lives which at first glance appear glamorous and successful. What's more, it's a tale that sparks questions about values and meaning at an age when boys themselves are searching.

'Everybody loves 'The Great Gatsby,' ' says Robert Peck, who since 1973 has taught English at the 1,000-student K-12 private school.

But the vast majority of assigned-reading novels are not such a slam-dunk with boy readers. Getting boys to read is an exercise that stumps many an educator.

Not only do boys consistently test lower than girls on reading, but they are well known to be reluctant readers. Some teachers suggest that the problem is only getting worse - that boys today have more distractions, particularly electronic ones - and are even less likely to come to class ready to get excited about a book.

Researchers and educators blame the gap between books and boys on everything from a built-in fidgetiness to low expectations to a lifelong association of reading with their mothers, teachers, librarians - all female role models.

But now more are suggesting that the problem may not lie entirely within the boys themselves. Some educators believe that the way schools teach reading tends to favor girls, both in terms of teaching style and reading materials chosen. It's a concern that has pushed teachers to work harder to both find materials that boys like to read, and to find more 'boy-friendly' ways to present that material.

'Boys have a more tactile, 'hands-on' learning style,' and they favor subject matter which reflects that, says Linda Milliken, reading specialist at Chester County Intermediate Unit near Philadelphia. 'They like lots of nature topics - bugs, dinosaurs, how things work,' she explains. 'They like to identify with a character who has his life in control.'

"

Filling the Racial Gap in Academia

Filling the Racial Gap in Academia: "One definition of insanity, someone once said, is to keep doing the same thing in the same way and expect different results. Here's another: Believing that a diagnosis and treatment that worked for a patient in one set of circumstances will work in all circumstances.

I am of an age to remember when the underrepresentation of black Americans in the nation's elite universities was very much a matter of racial discrimination. The prescription that followed from that diagnosis -- whether at Harvard or at Ole Miss -- was to work at eliminating discrimination. And, to an astounding degree, it worked.


And yet a report released last week by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation reveals that while the numbers have been improving with regard to university enrollment, still a small fraction of the doctoral degrees granted by those universities go to blacks or Hispanics -- about 7 percent in 2003. And most of that tiny number is awarded in a small range of disciplines, such as education. Almost certainly, someone will propose an attack on this new problem with the same diagnosis and prescription that worked for the old one."

Md. Students' Reading, Math Scores Rise

Md. Students' Reading, Math Scores Rise: "Maryland's elementary and middle schools posted notable gains in reading and mathematics test scores this year, with black and Hispanic students closing racial and ethnic achievement gaps in some key measures, state education officials reported today."