Ensuring America's Future: Benchmarking Latino College Completion to Meet National Goals: 2010 to 2020 | EdExcelencia.org

Ensuring America's Future: Benchmarking Latino College Completion to Meet National Goals: 2010 to 2020 | EdExcelencia.org: In 2009, President Obama set an ambitious goal for the U.S. to become the top ranked country in the world in college degree attainment by 2020.

While all groups will have to increase college degree attainment to meet President Obama's college completion goals, increasing Latino educational attainment is crucial because their educational attainment is lower than other groups (only 19 percent of Latino adults have earned an associate or higher) and the Latino population is rapidly expanding. By 2020, Latinos are projected to represent about 20 percent of the 18-64 year-old U.S. population, compared to 15 percent in 2008; by 2020 Latinos are projected to represent close to 25 percent of the U.S. 18-29 year-old population, up from 18 percent in 2008.

Ensuring America's Future: Federal Policy and Latino College Completion | EdExcelencia.org

Ensuring America's Future: Federal Policy and Latino College Completion | EdExcelencia.org: Achieving the nation's educational attainment goals is impossible without significant improvements in the postsecondary completion rates of Latino students. Taking into account the current population projections, educational attainment levels, and economic reality, this brief aligns a focus on Latino college degree completion with federal policy to address the emerging national agenda to accelerate degree completion.

Three policy areas- academic preparation, institutional capacity, and financial aid-were examined at the federal policy level that can support the achievement of Latino students entering and successfully completing a college degree. Collectively, federal policy in these areas impact higher education for all student, including Latinos; particularly in light of increasing college costs, decreasing financial resources, and articulated national goals of improved degree completion.

'Slavery' uncovered on trawlers fishing for Europe | Law | The Guardian

'Slavery' uncovered on trawlers fishing for Europe | Law | The Guardian: Shocking evidence of conditions akin to slavery on trawlers that provide fish for European dinner tables has been found in an investigation off the coast of west Africa.

Forced labour and human rights abuses involving African crews have been uncovered on trawlers fishing illegally for the European market by investigators for an environmental campaign group.

The Environmental Justice Foundation found conditions on board including incarceration, violence, withholding of pay, confiscation of documents, confinement on board for months or even years, and lack of clean water.

The EJF found hi-tech vessels operating without appropriate licences in fishing exclusion zones off the coast of Sierra Leone and Guinea over the last four years. The ships involved all carried EU numbers, indicating that they were licensed to import to Europe having theoretically passed strict hygiene standards.

Latino Education Meeting Considers Tough Higher Education Realities

Latino Education Meeting Considers Tough Higher Education Realities: WASHINGTON – The National Association of Latino Elected & Appointed Officials Educational Fund concluded its three-day national education summit Wednesday with a hard look at the state funding crisis in public higher education despite the need to increase postsecondary success for a far greater number of minority students if the U.S. is to maintain a competitive economy.

As states’ economies have declined, so too has their support for public higher education institutions, according to summit speakers. Two-year institutions are bearing the biggest brunt of budget cuts. According to a report produced by the American Association of Community Colleges, two-year institutions historically have received a mere 20 percent of state tax appropriations for higher education and, in 2007-08, they received only 27 percent of total federal, state and local revenues for public degree-granting institutions even though they serve 43 percent of the nation’s undergraduate students.

Minority Engineering Association Urges National Focus on Community College Students

Minority Engineering Association Urges National Focus on Community College Students: WASHINGTON – A national engineering science group, citing the surge in minority student enrollment in community colleges, says more emphasis should be placed on two-year college students as a key to boosting science, technology, engineering and math degree candidates and graduates.

At a Capitol Hill briefing here Wednesday, the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME) called on the nation’s higher education community to do more to remove decades-old academic transfer and financial barriers that “impede” the efforts of many community college students to attend and graduate from four-year, degree-granting engineering and related science programs.

In Louisville, a new turn in school integration - USATODAY.com

In Louisville, a new turn in school integration - USATODAY.com: LOUISVILLE — Elementary schools in white neighborhoods here are whiter now, and those in the black neighborhoods are blacker.

Under an integration plan the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in 2007, the Jefferson County School District required every school across greater Louisville to have an enrollment that was 15% to 50% African-American. The goal was to make schools in the district, where the student population is about two-thirds white and one-third black, racially diverse throughout.

The Supreme Court's decision ended that.

Now, Louisville is taking another swing at school integration. Under a new student-assignment plan that's tied to household income and dependent on increased cross-town busing, elementary schools slowly are being integrated in a different way. Yet the district that lost its case before the high court has fallen short of its goals of having a mix of students from higher- and lower-income areas and a blend of races in all classrooms.

Perspective: Leadership Steps for Bold Change at HBCUs

Perspective: Leadership Steps for Bold Change at HBCUs: The HBCU Symposium held this past June in Durham, N.C., the concluding event of North Carolina Central University’s Centennial Celebration, was a noteworthy event and deserving of further discussion. Having spent my formative years and much of my professional career in and around HBCUs, I wanted to offer my thoughts and support to Chancellor Charlie Nelms’ call for HBCUs to be “bold,” “change the narrative and (their) approach” and “… to be strategic.”

Changing the narrative means more than developing a new marketing campaign and doing a better job of public relations. Such a change requires a transformation in the behaviors and culture of many of these institutions.

D.C., suburbs show disturbing increases in childhood poverty

D.C., suburbs show disturbing increases in childhood poverty: Three out of 10 children in the nation's capital were living in poverty last year, with the number of poor African American children rising at a breathtaking rate, according to census statistics released Tuesday.

Among black children in the city, childhood poverty shot up to 43 percent, from 36 percent in 2008 and 31 percent in 2007. That was a much sharper increase than the two percentage-point jump, to 36 percent, among poor black children nationwide last year.
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The number of poor minority children also rose in many parts of the Washington suburbs, including Montgomery County, Alexandria, Arlington County and the northern half of Fairfax County.

Historian Gordon-Reed Named MacArthur Foundation ‘Genius Grant’ Recipient

Historian Gordon-Reed Named MacArthur Foundation ‘Genius Grant’ Recipient: Acclaimed historian and law professor Annette Gordon-Reed is among 23 winners of MacArthur fellowships, announced Monday by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Winners collect $500,000 in grants that are paid out over five years.

Gordon-Reed, the winner of a Pulitzer Prize for “The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family,” holds professorships in law and history at Harvard University. Gordon-Reed’s writings have been credited with reshaping conceptions of colonial and early-American interracial relations through the examination of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, the slave who had children Jefferson is alleged to have fathered.

STEM Teacher Recruitment Effort Launched by Obama Administration

STEM Teacher Recruitment Effort Launched by Obama Administration: President Barack Obama started the school week with a call for a longer school year and said the worst-performing teachers have “got to go” if they don't improve quickly.

Also on Monday, the president announced a goal of recruiting 10,000 teachers who work in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) over the next two years. In a statement, Obama said such education is vital to allowing students to compete against their peers in today's economy.

“When I came into office, I set a goal of moving our nation from the middle to the top of the pack in math and science education,” Obama said in a statement. “Strengthening STEM education is vital to preparing our students to compete in the 21st century economy and we need to recruit and train math and science teachers to support our nation’s students.”

Latino College Completion Campaign Moves Forward With Collaboration Strategy

Latino College Completion Campaign Moves Forward With Collaboration Strategy: Dozens of organizations around the country share the goal of improving Latino college student success, but there’s been little progress in closing the educational-attainment gap.

Latinos significantly lag behind Whites, Blacks and Asians/Pacific Islanders in degree completion. The majority of Latinos in America—87 percent—say a college education is extremely important, according to a poll last spring sponsored by The Associated Press, Univision Communications, The Nielsen Company and Stanford University. Yet, Census data show that only 13 percent of Hispanics have a bachelor’s degree or higher as compared with 20 percent of Blacks, 53 percent of Asians and 33 percent of non-Hispanic Whites.

Although the number of Latinos attending and completing college has risen, those increases are not commensurate with increases in the population of Hispanics, who represent 15.8 percent of the U.S. population.

Census finds record gap between rich and poor

Census finds record gap between rich and poor: The income gap between the richest and poorest Americans grew last year to its widest amount on record as young adults and children in particular struggled to stay afloat in the recession.

The top-earning 20 percent of Americans - those making more than $100,000 each year - received 49.4 percent of all income generated in the U.S., compared with the 3.4 percent earned by those below the poverty line, according to newly released census figures. That ratio of 14.5-to-1 was an increase from 13.6 in 2008 and nearly double a low of 7.69 in 1968.

Minority Leaders Oppose “Gainful Employment” Rules for For-profit Colleges

Minority Leaders Oppose “Gainful Employment” Rules for For-profit Colleges: Some African-American and Hispanic leaders have taken a stand against proposed federal rules designed to curb student-loan defaults at for-profit colleges, arguing the strictures would reduce the educational options of minority students, who represent a large part of the enrollment at the schools.

Rev. Jesse Jackson of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition and some members of the Congressional Black and Hispanic caucuses have sent letters to the U.S. Department of Education opposing draft regulations that would cut off access to federal student aid to for-profit schools that appear to have prepared too few of their graduates for “gainful employment.”

PhD Project Tackles Business School Deanship Diversity

PhD Project Tackles Business School Deanship Diversity: As dean of the Whitman School of Business at Syracuse University, Dr. Melvin Stith does the same job as other top administrators. He recruits talented faculty and graduate students, mentors new professors, seeks partnerships with corporations and foundations, and strengthens relations with alumni. What makes Stith unusual is that he is African-American, a rare minority among administrators at the approximately 1,600 business schools in the U.S.

“We’ve just done an elaborate survey,” says KPMG Foundation President Bernie Milano. “We believe there are five African-American deans, nine Hispanic-American deans and we don’t know of any Native American deans.” Milano also directs The PhD Project, an organization devoted to boosting the number of Black, Hispanic and Native American business school professors. In the 16 years since The PhD Project launched, the number has risen from fewer than 300 out of 26,000 to more than 1,000 today.

First Black Elected Official Defies Racism In Russia : NPR

First Black Elected Official Defies Racism In Russia : NPR: Life in Russia, in many ways, is much like life in the United States. A day in Moscow feels very much like a day in any American big city. People rush to and from work in cars, or on the bus or subway. After work, it's home to the family, or a stop at the gym.

Still, there are differences. Because the police and justice system are riddled with corruption, there's a feeling that if something happens to you on the street, you have no place to turn.

I was especially worried about two gay friends who came to visit me in Moscow. The city has a history of harassment against openly gay men. And the same goes for blacks.

Even though for decades the Soviet Union recruited African students to come to universities and learn about communism, there are very few black faces in Russia today.

Skinheads are active in the capital and elsewhere, and blacks have been harassed on the street and beaten on trains and the subway.

So, this summer, when I heard that a black man had been elected councilman in Novozavidovo, a small town 60 miles north of Moscow, I knew I had to go meet him.

Movie Review - 'Waiting for Superman' - Documentary on America’s Public School System - NYTimes.com

Movie Review - 'Waiting for Superman' - Documentary on America’s Public School System - NYTimes.com: “One of the saddest days of my life was when my mother told me ‘Superman’ did not exist,” the educational reformer Geoffrey Canada recalls in the opening moments of “Waiting for ‘Superman,’ ” a powerful and alarming documentary about America’s failing public school system. “She thought I was crying because it’s like Santa Claus is not real. I was crying because no one was coming with enough power to save us.”

If Mr. Canada, who was born in the South Bronx and grew up to be one of the country’s most charismatic and inspiring educators, is not Superman, he must be a close relative. Those who have read Paul Tough’s book, “Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America,” will know that the 97-block Harlem Children’s Zone, which he founded and runs, is no miracle. The zone is astoundingly successful at getting children through high school and into college. But that success, largely dependent on private money, is a costly product of laborious trial and error.

The Return of African-American Baseball Players

The Return of African-American Baseball Players: Baseball has come a long way since Jackie Robinson broke the color line in 1947. Robinson's courageous desegregation of the game now serves as an inspiration to all Americans. And those ballplayers who followed in Robinson's large footsteps -- all-time greats like Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson and Bob Gibson -- provided evidence of the greatness that African Americans could accomplish if given a fair shot. Baseball now celebrates the anniversary of Robinson's breakthrough every season on April 15, when every player wears Jackie's number 42.

The occasion has usually also been a time for head scratching, however. African-American participation in baseball has been on the decline for years, recently reaching a figure of just over 8 percent. And although it has increased marginally since then, this year just 9.5 percent of players on opening-day rosters were of African-American descent.

Rosa Parks Had a Radical Side: Championing the Rights of Rape Victims

Rosa Parks Had a Radical Side: Championing the Rights of Rape Victims: Rosa Parks was a demure seamstress who defied a Montgomery, Ala., bus driver's order to give up her seat to a white man because -- on that particular day -- she was tired. Her spontaneous act sparked a 1955 bus boycott that launched the civil rights movement.

Sound familiar? It should. It's the tale told in history books. It's also just a tiny sliver of the truth. The flesh-and-blood Rosa Parks is a lot more interesting. 'It's sad, I think,' author Danielle L. McGuire told me. 'We tend to like our heroes simple and meek.'

'If we had a larger sense of who she was, a radical activist and warrior for human rights,' instead of a powerless individual struck by chance, said McGuire, it would show the work and the time she put in over many years.

McGuire, an assistant professor in the history department of Wayne State University in Detroit, tells the history of Parks' activism in her just-published book, At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance -- a New History of the Civil Rights Movement From Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power. She gives a name to a few of the many women who risked their lives by speaking about brutality and injustice. They claimed their dignity and womanhood in a society that refused to recognize either.

Future Scholars Program Guides Tucson 5th Graders to College

Future Scholars Program Guides Tucson 5th Graders to College: Aida Garcia-Iniguez-Madero's fifth-graders learned last week that planning for college now is as important as learning fractions and proper grammar.

As part of an Educational Enrichment Foundation program, the class of 26 boys and girls will receive continuous guidance throughout their school years and, if they follow through, financial help for college as well.

The idea behind the program, called Focus on the Future Scholars, is to envelop each child in a “culture of college expectation,” said Lissa Gibbs, executive director of the Tucson-based foundation.

The endowments were awarded to this fifth-grade class at Roskruge Bilingual Magnet Middle & Elementary School for several reasons, she said, including the school's proximity to the University of Arizona and Tucson Magnet High School.

Special Report: Puerto Rico’s Eleven Campuses, One University, Many Strikes

Special Report: Puerto Rico’s Eleven Campuses, One University, Many Strikes: Students from the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) went on strike in April, and, soon after, 10 of the 11 campuses of a public system with more than 60,000 students were closed. “Once recintos, una universidad” (eleven campuses, one university) was the maxim students used to emphasize the concept of the UPR as a system unified by similar goals, aspirations and challenges. A national body was formed to lead and coordinate the protest throughout the island. For the first time, faculty from the entire system met to discuss the state of affairs at UPR and determine how best to support the strike. National and international figures have voiced their support, and the media from Puerto Rico and abroad have covered the university strike extensively. Repeated attempts by the government to portray strikers as communists failed.

Muslims Say They Face More Discrimination at Work - NYTimes.com

Muslims Say They Face More Discrimination at Work - NYTimes.com: At a time of growing tensions involving Muslims in the United States, a record number of Muslim workers are complaining of employment discrimination, from co-workers calling them “terrorist” or “Osama” to employers barring them from wearing head scarves or taking prayer breaks.

Such complaints were increasing even before frictions erupted over the planned Islamic center in Lower Manhattan, with Muslim workers filing a record 803 such claims in the year ended Sept. 30, 2009. That was up 20 percent from the previous year and up nearly 60 percent from 2005, according to federal data.

The number of complaints filed since then will not be announced until January, but Islamic groups say they have received a surge in complaints recently, suggesting that 2010’s figure will set another record.

The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has found enough merit in some of the complaints that it has filed several prominent lawsuits on behalf of Muslim workers.

Last month, the commission sued JBS Swift, a meatpacking company, on behalf of 160 Somali immigrants, saying supervisors and workers had cursed them for being Muslim; thrown blood, meat and bones at them; and interrupted their prayer breaks.

Latina Athletic Director Thrives on Learning and Teaching

Latina Athletic Director Thrives on Learning and Teaching: ...Today, as the athletic director at St. Francis College, a Division I institution in Brooklyn, N.Y., Garcia thrives on teaching others the rules of sports and sports administration. During her ascent to the top sports administrative position at her alma mater, she thrived on the input she received from mentors, but there was little information available about professional development and networking.

“I tell my coaches and staff you have to participate in professional growth and development opportunities,” says Garcia, who coached the St. Francis’ women’s basketball team for 11 years. “You have to be part of committees and learn about things that are going to help you become a better administrator. If you’re a minority, you have to do it because you have to understand the culture.”

DREAM ACT Fails With Senate Rejection of Defense Spending Bill

DREAM ACT Fails With Senate Rejection of Defense Spending Bill: The chance for hundreds of thousands of young people to legally remain in the U.S. evaporated Tuesday when Republicans blocked a defense spending bill in the Senate.

Democrats failed to get a single Republican to help them reach the 60 votes needed to move forward on the defense bill and attach the DREAM Act as an amendment. The vote was 56-43. Arkansas Democratic Sens. Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor voted with Republicans. Majority Leader Harry Reid also voted to block the bill in a procedural move that allows the defense bill to be revived later.

The DREAM Act allows young people to become legal U.S. residents after spending two years in college or the military. It applies to people who were under 16 when they arrived in the U.S., have been in the country at least five years and have a diploma from a U.S. high school or the equivalent.

What if HBCU's Never Existed? | News One

What if HBCU's Never Existed? | News One: Well, this week we celebrate four giant letters, folks… H– B – C – U. That’s right, each year in mid-September, we recognize National Historically Black Colleges and Universities Week.

Some of you may recall the online hypothetical scenario from a number of years ago that examined what the world would be if there were no black people. Well, today, I want us to consider what our community and our modern world would be if our HBCUs never existed.

Just imagine how the field of education itself would be without the contributions of Mary McCloud Bethune or Booker T. Washington, the founders of Bethune Cookman College and Tuskegee University…

What state would American race relations be in if the NAACP hadn’t been co-founded at the turn of the 20th Century by Fisk University alum W.E.B. DuBois? Or what would the state of world literature be without the writings and poems of Lincoln University’s Langston Hughes or the groundbreaking novels of Nobel Prize winner, and Howard alum Toni Morrison?

New Study Finds Big Racial Gap in Suspensions of Middle School Students | Southern Poverty Law Center

New Study Finds Big Racial Gap in Suspensions of Middle School Students | Southern Poverty Law Center: Middle schools across the country are suspending children with alarming frequency, particularly in some large urban school districts, where numerous schools suspend a third or more of their black male students in a given year, according to a new study by education researchers Daniel J. Losen and Russell Skiba, and published today by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The study found that African-American children are suspended far more frequently than white children, in general, with especially high racial differences in middle school, causing them to miss valuable class time during a crucial period in their academic and social development.

In a national sample of more than 9,000 middle schools, 28.3 percent of black males, on average, were suspended at least once during a school year, nearly three times the 10 percent rate for white males. Black females were suspended more than four times as often as white females (18 percent vs. 4 percent).

For all students in the schools examined, the suspension rate was 11.2 percent. Hispanic males faced a 16.3 percent risk of suspension.

The Faked Acid Attack and the Sordid History of Racial Hoaxes

The Faked Acid Attack and the Sordid History of Racial Hoaxes: No one knows why Bethany Storro decided to mutilate her own face with acid late last month. Obviously deeply troubled, she was sane enough to make a calculated decision to maximize sympathy and deflect suspicion. She blamed it on a black person.

And the fake acid attack became the latest twist on a tactic as old as America itself, one that plays into every long-held stereotype of black folks as criminal and violent: the racial hoax. The racial hoax 'plays into long-standing fear and part of American folklore, that the main victims of blacks are white women,' says Adrian Pantoja, a political scientist at Pitzer College in California who specializes in American racial attitudes. 'It’s very strategic because they know they will get the most attention if they claim the perpetrator is black.'

SAT Takers Grow More Diverse, Scores Stagnate

SAT Takers Grow More Diverse, Scores Stagnate: More students from diverse backgrounds are taking the SAT, a College Board report released Monday shows, but critics warn that their performance on the college entrance exam raises concerns about the current national policy and quality of K-12 education.

Among SAT takers in the high school class of 2010, the report states, 41.5 percent were minority students, a 3.75 percent jump over the 40 percent who took the test the previous year and a dramatic rise over the 28.6 percent who took the college entrance exam in 2000. The College Board reported that more college-bound students in the class of 2010, nearly 1.6 million students, took the SAT than in any other high school graduating class in history.

However, mean scores generally held steady but also approached historic lows in some measures.

“That’s a good thing that more kids, particularly those from historically disenfranchised groups, are thinking about going to college,” said Robert Schaeffer, public education director of FairTest, an organization that advocates for fairness in standardized assessments.

University of North Carolina Celebrates 1955 Racial Integration Milestone

University of North Carolina Celebrates 1955 Racial Integration Milestone: Three distinguished University of North Carolina alumni were looking forward to doing something Saturday that they never could when they were students: watching the Tar Heels play football in the company of people of all races.

When John Brandon and the brothers Ralph and LeRoy Frasier became the first three Black undergraduates at Chapel Hill, football games were still segregated by race, as were most public places in North Carolina.

Now, 55 years after a federal court allowed them to register for classes by overturning the university's racist admissions policy, the three are returning to be celebrated as pioneers by a UNC where the most famous alumnus is Michael Jordan and which has more Black students enrolled than any other major research institution.

“Those days were probably the most stressful of my life,” said Ralph Frasier, 72, during a visit Friday to campus. “I can't say that I have many happy memories.''

College-educated Americans More Likely Experience Job Satisfaction, Lead Healthier Lives, Study Says

College-educated Americans More Likely Experience Job Satisfaction, Lead Healthier Lives, Study Says: College graduates earned significantly more in 2008 than their less-educated peers and also liked their jobs more, but significant disparities remain along racial and ethnic lines in terms of who gets into college, who graduates and the size of the salaries that graduates command upon graduation.

Such are among the key findings of a new College Board report released today titled Education Pays 2010: The Benefits of Higher Education for Individuals and Society.

The report delves into more than just the financial rewards of holding a college degree in today’s economy, showing, for instance, how college graduates were less likely to smoke or be obese than high school graduates; how they vote and volunteer more; are more satisfied with their jobs; and how their children enter school more academically prepared than the children of lesser-educated parents.

'Other Suns': When African-Americans Fled North : NPR

'Other Suns': When African-Americans Fled North : NPR: Reading Isabel Wilkerson is like hearing the stories of my parents’ friends and their parents, the handed-down (and often sanitized) tales of their exodus from the South. The exits occurred for various reasons: the desire to escape the near-starvation of tenant farmer existences; the need to leave because their own prospects were so restricted, and they wanted more for their children; the middle of the night departures because a son had not been deferential enough to an outraged white townsman; the vaporization of an entire family overnight, because their pretty eldest daughter had attracted the lingering glance of a white man she would not be allowed to refuse, with dire consequences to her entire family. They’re all reflected in The Warmth of Other Suns, Wilkerson’s sweeping history of the Great Migration.

"The Grace of Silence," a memoir by Michele Norris

"The Grace of Silence," a memoir by Michele Norris: Michele Norris, co-host of NPR's 'All Things Considered,' grew up being told to 'rise above' racial discrimination and keep her 'eye on the prize.' She didn't realize then that her African American parents were trying to do the same. In her memoir, 'The Grace of Silence,' Norris chases after a family secret revealed too late -- that her father had been shot by a police officer in Birmingham shortly after being discharged from the Navy after World War II. Learning of the incident years after her father's death and long after other family members' memories of the event had faded, Norris can only guess at how it must have haunted him for the rest of his life.

Campus Overload - John Legend guest lectures at Howard

Campus Overload - John Legend guest lectures at Howard: Amidst a discussion about school segregation in Howard University Professor Greg Carr's 'Education in Black America' course Thursday morning, there was a knock at the door -- and an announcement that there would be a chance in lecturer.

'Surprise, surprise,' said singer John Legend, a six-time Grammy winner and philanthropist. Legend was in Washington to attend the premier of 'Waiting for Superman,' a documentary about education reform that features his music, and promote his new album with the Roots, 'Wake Up!'

The four dozen or so students in the class laughed and clapped, shouted out greetings and snapped photos with their cellphones, and then everything reverted back to a regular classroom -- well, other than the mtvU cameras and bright lights.

One in seven Americans is living in poverty, Census shows

One in seven Americans is living in poverty, Census shows: One in seven Americans is living in poverty, the highest number in the half-century that the government has kept such statistics, the Census Bureau announced Thursday.

Last year was the third consecutive year that the poverty rate climbed, in part because of the recession, rising from 13.2 percent in 2008 to 14.3 percent, or 43.6 million people, last year.

Asians were the only ethnic group whose poverty rate did not change substantially; every other race and Hispanics experienced increases in poverty rates.

In addition, 51 million Americans were uninsured, as the number of people with health insurance dropped from 255 million to less than 254 million -- the first decrease since the government started keeping track in 1987. The number would have been worse because 6.5 million fewer people got insurance through their jobs, but it was offset by a leap in government-backed health insurance. More than 30 percent of Americans now get coverage from the government.

National Science Board Report Calls for Equity, Excellence and Opportunity in STEM

National Science Board Report Calls for Equity, Excellence and Opportunity in STEM: The United States’ ability to be not just a global leader but even a competitive participant in technology will depend largely on a massive infusion of women and underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM. Indeed, according to the National Science Foundation, there is evidence that even the nation’s top students are forgoing science and engineering careers, resulting in a 25 percent and 19 percent drop in engineering and mathematics, respectively.

Tractor is slow, but so is justice regarding settlement, black farmer says - CNN.com

Tractor is slow, but so is justice regarding settlement, black farmer says - CNN.com: Beginning Thursday, the head of the National Black Farmers Association will ride a tractor to Capitol Hill to press Congress to fund a historic discrimination case settlement involving minority farmers.

John Boyd says he will make the ride on the tractor he named 'Justice' each day the Senate is in session.

Last week, he showed up in front of a federal courthouse in New York on a mule -- a reference to Civil War-era promises of assistance for freed African-American slaves.

'I'm sorry my tractor may slow things down, but any delay in traffic is small potatoes compared to the years of delay black farmers have endured in our pursuit of justice,' he said.

Other Nations Outclass U.S. on Education - CBS Evening News - CBS News

Other Nations Outclass U.S. on Education - CBS Evening News - CBS News: ...Of 30 comparable countries, the United States ranks near the bottom. Take math - Finland is first, followed by South Korea, and the United States is number 25. Same story in science: Finland, number one again. The United States? Number 21.

Where does the United States outrank Finland? On the amount spent per student: just over $129,000 from K through 12. The other countries average $95,000.

"We have world class expenditures, but not world class results," said Schneider.

When it comes to high school graduation rates, the United States is 20th on the list. Germany, Japan, Korea and the U.K. all do better with graduation rates of 90 percent or more. In the Unites States, it's just 75 percent.

It's not so much that the United States has slowed down in the last half a century, it's more that other countries sped up.

Filipino teachers protest dismissals at school board meeting - baltimoresun.com

Filipino teachers protest dismissals at school board meeting - baltimoresun.com: More than 50 Filipino teachers and a host of supporters shared with the Baltimore City school board Tuesday night emotional stories about not having their contracts renewed this school year and being denied due process in fighting for their jobs.

Members of the Baltimore Teachers Union and Filipino Educators of Maryland accompanied the teachers to the board meeting, where union officials asserted that teachers were 'being treated like trash,' in what they called arbitrary decisions by principals not to renew contracts. They added that the teachers were not given required improvement plans and access to a fair and speedy appeals process.

'They are not trash,' union official George Hendricks told the board. 'Their livelihood was put in the hands of a single person.'

Some principals made their decisions before classroom observations had taken place, teachers told board members. Some later told The Baltimore Sun that they felt discriminated against.

HBCU National Meeting Stresses Competitiveness by Black Schools

HBCU National Meeting Stresses Competitiveness by Black Schools: The future of HBCUs hinges on winning contracts instead of grants, identifying and implementing ways to become more energy efficient, and making a concerted effort to retain and graduate incoming students who are increasingly ill-prepared for the rigors of college.

Such were among the key messages delivered Tuesday during the final day of HBCU Week 2010, which featured speakers from leaders of government, multinational corporations and the ranks of prominent Black scholars.

Oliver Leslie, the HBCU/MI program manager at aerospace giant The Boeing Corporation, said it is becoming increasingly essential for HBCUs to start competing for government and private industry contracts instead of just grants.

“We’re moving away from the grant world to the contract world,” Oliver said during a panel discussion titled ‘Building Private Partnerships’. “It’s a paradigm shift.”

Minorities Outnumber Whites In University Of Texas Class Of 2014

Minorities Outnumber Whites In University Of Texas Class Of 2014: Changes are afoot at the University of Texas. For the first time in the school's history, the incoming freshman class is made up of more minority students than white, as reported to the Austin American-Statesman by UT's Office of Information Management and Analysis on Tuesday.

Although the shift in numbers -- from 51.1 percent of last year's freshman identifying as white to 47.6 percent this year -- may be due to recent changes in methods of racial categorization, vice provost Kedra Ishop affirms that the new statistics are real. Ishop told the Daily Texan that the class of 2014 represents Texas' admissions office efforts 'to recruit quality students 'across the board.''

Although the percentage of black and Hispanic students has risen throughout the undergraduate community, whites still make up the majority of UT students at 52.1 percent.

Denzel Washington, Boys & Girls Clubs fight dropouts - USATODAY.com

Denzel Washington, Boys & Girls Clubs fight dropouts - USATODAY.com: Long before he became a Hollywood star, Denzel Washington was a Mount Vernon, N.Y., schoolboy who spent after-school hours and weekends at his local Boys & Girls Club.

For 18 years, Washington has been national spokesman for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. On Wednesday, he's in Washington to help launch a new national program, called Be Great: Graduate, to identify kids who are at risk of dropping out of school and give them the help they need to stay and finish.

'Our goal is simple to state but hard to achieve,' Washington said in a statement. 'We want to help every Boys & Girls Club member advance to the next grade level every year and graduate from high school on time, prepared with the attitude, knowledge and confidence to succeed and achieve.'

Racial Disparity in School Suspensions - NYTimes.com

Racial Disparity in School Suspensions - NYTimes.com: In many of the nation’s middle schools, black boys were nearly three times as likely to be suspended as white boys, according to a new study, which also found that black girls were suspended at four times the rate of white girls.

School authorities also suspended Hispanic and American Indian middle school students at higher rates than white students, though not at such disproportionate rates as for black children, the study found. Asian students were less likely to be suspended than whites.

The study analyzed four decades of federal Department of Education data on suspensions, with a special focus on figures from 2002 and 2006, that were drawn from 9,220 of the nation’s 16,000 public middle schools.

Civil Rights Photographer Unmasked as Informer - NYTimes.com

Civil Rights Photographer Unmasked as Informer - NYTimes.com: ATLANTA — That photo of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. riding one of the first desegregated buses in Montgomery, Ala.? He took it. The well-known image of black sanitation workers carrying “I Am a Man” signs in Memphis? His. He was the only photojournalist to document the entire trial in the murder of Emmett Till, and he was there in Room 306 of the Lorraine Hotel, Dr. King’s room, on the night he was assassinated.

But now an unsettling asterisk must be added to the legacy of Ernest C. Withers, one of the most celebrated photographers of the civil rights era: He was a paid F.B.I. informer.

On Sunday, The Commercial Appeal in Memphis published the results of a two-year investigation that showed Mr. Withers, who died in 2007 at age 85, had collaborated closely with two F.B.I. agents in the 1960s to keep tabs on the civil rights movement. It was an astonishing revelation about a former police officer nicknamed the Original Civil Rights Photographer, whose previous claim to fame had been the trust he engendered among high-ranking civil rights leaders, including Dr. King.

SAT Takers Grow More Diverse, Scores Stagnate

SAT Takers Grow More Diverse, Scores Stagnate: More students from diverse backgrounds are taking the SAT, a College Board report released Monday shows, but critics warn that their performance on the college entrance exam raises concerns about the current national policy and quality of K-12 education.

Among SAT takers in the high school class of 2010, the report states, 41.5 percent were minority students, a 3.75 percent jump over the 40 percent who took the test the previous year and a dramatic rise over the 28.6 percent who took the college entrance exam in 2000. The College Board reported that more college-bound students in the class of 2010, nearly 1.6 million students, took the SAT than in any other high school graduating class in history.

However, mean scores generally held steady but also approached historic lows in some measures.

Obama Administration Officials Praise, Encourage HBCUs at National Conference

Obama Administration Officials Praise, Encourage HBCUs at National Conference: White House Domestic Policy Council director Melody Barnes helped kick off the 2010 National HBCU Week conference with a keynote address that praised the Black institutions for the contributions they’ve made to both the African-American community and the world at large and reminded them how important they are to the U.S.

“Because your institutions are so vital to our country, it is important that you join with us as we ask others to recommit ourselves to ensure that every single student who dreams of going to college can attend college,” Barnes said.

Report: More women than men in U.S. earned doctorates last year for first time

Report: More women than men in U.S. earned doctorates last year for first time: For the first time, more women than men in the United States received doctoral degrees last year, the culmination of decades of change in the status of women at colleges nationwide.

The number of women at every level of academia has been rising for decades. Women now hold a nearly 3-to-2 majority in undergraduate and graduate education. Doctoral study was the last holdout - the only remaining area of higher education that still had an enduring male majority.

Of the doctoral degrees awarded in the 2008-09 academic year, 28,962 went to women and 28,469 to men, according to an annual enrollment report from the Council of Graduate Schools, based in Washington.

Rev. Jackson Debunks ‘Post-Racial’ Idea at Minority Legal Scholar Conference

Rev. Jackson Debunks ‘Post-Racial’ Idea at Minority Legal Scholar Conference: The Rev. Jesse Jackson, the civil rights leader who twice ran for president, mocks the notion that the mere fact that a Black person is sitting in the White House means the nation has entered a “post-racial” era.

At best, America is “post-racist in a legal sense, but not post-racial in terms of the unfinished business,” Jackson told law professors and students meeting under the theme of “Our Country, Our World in a ‘Post-Racial’ Era” at the Third National People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference at Seton Hall University School of Law.

“We have gone from learning to survive apart but not learning how to live together,” he added. “Furthermore, we should not want to be post-racial. What we want to be is multi-racial and multi-cultural. We should affirm race.”

An Appreciation: Political Scientist Ronald Walters, 1938 – 2010

An Appreciation: Political Scientist Ronald Walters, 1938 – 2010: When journalists across the country wanted to enrich their political news stories with a greater grasp of the evolving American political landscape, they always sought the opinions of Dr. Ronald Walters, an HBCU trained historian who became one of the nation’s most respected political scientists in the last half century.

As a teen in 1958, Walters helped lead “sit ins” protesting racially segregated lunch counters in his hometown of Wichita, Kansas, where he was leader of his hometown NAACP Youth Council. As an adult in 1963, he graduated from Fisk University, where he was inspired by former Fisk professors W.E.B. DuBois and John Hope Franklin. He went on to earn a Master’s and a Ph.D. from American University. He then began carving a niche that combined his activist and academic experiences into a career that saw him emerge as a leading thinker of his generation on American politics and how Black voters figured into it.

Researchers in Asian Countries Raise Their Scientific Profiles Worldwide - NYTimes.com

Researchers in Asian Countries Raise Their Scientific Profiles Worldwide - NYTimes.com: KUALA LUMPUR — While researchers at universities and institutes in many Western countries fret about budget pressures, scientists in many Asian nations are translating huge investments in research and development into impressive gains in research output.

The Asia-Pacific region increased its global share of published science articles from 13 percent in the early 1980s to just over 30 percent in 2009, according to the Thomson Reuters National Science Indicators, an annual database that records the number of articles published in about 12,000 internationally recognized journals. Meanwhile, the proportion of articles from the United States dropped to 28 percent in 2009, down from 40 percent in the early 1980s.

Briefly - U.S. Schools Attract Smaller Share of International Students - NYTimes.com

Briefly - U.S. Schools Attract Smaller Share of International Students - NYTimes.com: Although the United States is still the favored destination for students who want to study abroad, the share of international students coming to the country has been declining steadily since the year 2000, according to a study released Tuesday by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Ten years ago, when some 1.8 million students were enrolled in universities outside their home countries, 26 percent of them were in the United States. The total number studying abroad has risen steadily, from 2.6 million in 2005 to 3.3 million in 2008, the last year for which figures are available. But over that same time period the U.S. market share of international students has shrunk to 18.7 percent. Britain, Germany and France, the second, third and fourth most popular countries for study abroad, have also experienced declines in popularity, but none as steep as the United States.

Guidebook that held blacks' hands during segregation reveals a deeply altered D.C. and inspires a play

Guidebook that held blacks' hands during segregation reveals a deeply altered D.C. and inspires a play: The old Holleywood tavern at Ninth and U streets NW, one of just eight bars in Washington listed as open to blacks in 1949, is now the indie-rock bar, DC9. Where the Brass Rail restaurant once served blacks who were excluded from most downtown eateries, there is now a day-care center for toddlers and infants. Green's, a beauty parlor on 18th, south of U, is now a Peruvian restaurant.

Half a century after the edition of the Negro Motorist Green Book with those D.C. listings was published, playwright Calvin Alexander Ramsey stumbled upon the book, which was once a kind of Fodor's Black America - a travel guide for African Americans road-tripping in an era of racial segregation.

Ramsey was at a funeral in Atlanta eight years ago when an elderly New Yorker first mentioned the book to him. That exchange launched Ramsey on a journey that arrives Wednesday at the Lincoln Theatre for a Green Book-centered night including a reading of his play, also called "The Green Book." Ramsey has also written a children's book about the guide that became the bible of black travel during Jim Crow - and he's making a Green Book documentary, too.

Black Coaches Help Launch Groundbreaking College Football Season

Black Coaches Help Launch Groundbreaking College Football Season: The 2010 college football season has more Blacks leading Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) teams as head coaches than ever before. African-Americans lead 13 of the 120 FBS teams. Last year, the FBS counted 10 Blacks as head coaches.

It shouldn’t be hard for fans to notice the increased presence of African-American head coaches especially since many of their games, like last week’s matchup between the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville, will likely draw considerable scrutiny. Incidentally, Kentucky’s Joker Phillips and Louisville’s Charlie Strong are first-time head coaches in their rookie years.

Professors of pronunciation help immigrants - USATODAY.com

Professors of pronunciation help immigrants - USATODAY.com: A growing number of immigrants are taking lessons and taking classes on how to speak English like an American, experts in pronunciation say.

'We're doing business like gangbusters,' said Judy Ravin, president of Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Accent Reduction Institute.

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association's most recent survey addressing accent modification showed its members spent an estimated 5.7% of their time providing accent-modification services in 2009, up from 3.7% in 2007.

Michelle Obama Asks Congress to Join Childhood Obesity Fight - NYTimes.com

Michelle Obama Asks Congress to Join Childhood Obesity Fight - NYTimes.com: Declaring the beginning of the “next phase” of a program to combat childhood obesity, the first lady, Michelle Obama, called on Congress on Wednesday to pass legislation that would make many of the program’s initiatives possible.

In a speech at an elementary school here, Mrs. Obama ticked off the main points of her “Let’s Move!” campaign: encouraging children to exercise, providing more free and reduced-price school meals and making the food in schools more nutritious. Explicitly tying school nutrition to academic performance, she pledged to expand the program on all these points.

But Mrs. Obama, who has typically not waded into Congressional debates, emphasized that achieving much of this was dependent on federal lawmakers.

“It’s important to be clear,” she said, “that we can’t do any of this unless we pass the Child Nutrition legislation that’s before Congress right now.”

Bernie Milano Maintains Long-term Focus on Minority Doctorate Program

Bernie Milano Maintains Long-term Focus on Minority Doctorate Program: Mention Bernie Milano to anyone concerned about the dearth of minorities holding terminal degrees in business and related fields and the response is universal. If it were not for him, things would be much worse. As the founding president and driving force behind a 16-year effort to bolster diversity among teachers in the nation’s colleges and schools of business administration, Milano has done things that few thought were possible.

While many organizations have started ambitious programs to address diversity, few have stayed the course over the long run. The KPMG Foundation’s PhD Project is one of the few to stay the course over the long haul. Today, there are 1,043 business professors from underrepresented groups, up from fewer than 300 when the project began.

Diverse spoke with Milano recently about the project’s past, present and future.

Latino Higher Education Group Launches College-completion Campaign

Latino Higher Education Group Launches College-completion Campaign: With a sizable list of partner organizations, the Excelencia in Education advocacy group embarked Wednesday upon what organization leaders described as a “quest” for solutions and policy changes that will help improve college completion rates among United States’ growing Latino population over the next decade.

Like many higher education initiatives, this one — formally known as Ensuring America’s Future by Increasing Latino College Completion — seeks to align itself with the Obama Administration’s goal of making the United States the most college-educated nation in the world by 2020.

What is distinct about the initiative is that it claims that goal cannot be reached unless there is a concerted and deliberate effort to identify and expand the use of tactics and strategies that have been proven to work with getting more Latino youths to and through college.

Sarita Brown, president of Excelencia in Education, likened the initiative to a capital campaign.

“But our resource is people,” Brown said Wednesday at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. “This is a human-capital campaign.”

Prince George's to open first online classroom

Prince George's to open first online classroom: Prince George's County students will be able to take their learning online Tuesday with the launch of the first web-based program for juniors and seniors in county high schools.

The program, called ACCESS Online, will combine personalized in-class learning with online curriculum at Annapolis Road Academy Alternative High School in Bladensburg. It will be available for the first 60 students who apply.

This is the first web-driven curriculum effort offered by the county, and the program will be run jointly through a one-year $326,000 contract with Connections Academy, a Baltimore-based online education provider. The program was budgeted for in the county school system's fiscal 2011 budget. Credits in subjects such as English, algebra, history, biology, environmental science, world languages and technology will be offered, allowing students to work toward their diplomas.

Education Week: Learning-Disabled Enrollment Dips After Long Climb

Education Week: Learning-Disabled Enrollment Dips After Long Climb: After decades of what seemed to be an inexorable upward path, the number of students classified as learning-disabled declined from year to year over much of the past decade—a change in direction that is spurring debates among experts about the reasons why.

The percentage of 3- to 21-year-old students nationwide classified as having a “specific learning disability” dropped steadily from 6.1 percent in the 2000-01 school year to 5.2 percent in 2007-08, according to the most recent data available, which comes from the U.S Department of Education’s 2009 Digest of Education Statistics. In numbers, that’s a drop from about 2.9 million students to 2.6 million students.

A learning disability—a processing disorder that impairs learning but not a student’s overall cognitive ability—is the largest, by far, of the 13 disability classifications recognized by the main federal special education law. Forty percent of the approximately 6.6 million students covered under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, fall into that category.

Best & Brightest: Temple University Grad Continues Public Health Advocacy

Best & Brightest: Temple University Grad Continues Public Health Advocacy: ...Lopez credits Temple with allowing her to create Chicas in Charge, a five-week program in Reading that helps Latina girls ages 14 to 17 learn about preventing sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancy.

She began working on the project while taking a two-semester program planning course that explained how to budget and market a health program and write grants. Lopez presented the project during an internship interview at the Co-County Wellness Services office in Reading. While working there, the project became a reality in July, when about 10 teenage girls took classes on birth control and the prevention of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

HBCU Stimulus Funding Has Helpful Yet Limited Impact

HBCU Stimulus Funding Has Helpful Yet Limited Impact: Since the $787 billion stimulus package, formally known as the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA), was signed into law last year, an estimated $50 billion to $75 billion have gone to higher education institutions through research grants, capital improvement funds and student aid.

A Diverse analysis shows that, in the first year of the program, fiscal year 2009, federal agencies funneled more than $550 million to historically Black colleges and universities. However, the analysis is not definitive due to reporting irregularities. While publicly available data does little to distinguish new monies from yearly grants and appropriations, it appears much of the stimulus money to HBCUs was used to help them hang on rather than thrive with a new investment.

First African-American Hired as University of Maryland Athletic Director

First African-American Hired as University of Maryland Athletic Director: The University of Maryland named Kevin Anderson as its new athletic director Saturday. Anderson previously held the same job for 5 1/2 years at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Anderson will be in charge of Maryland’s 27 athletic teams. He takes over for Debbie Yow, who left Maryland for North Carolina State in July.

At Army, Anderson was responsible for a 25-sport program that served more than 900 cadet-athletes.

He was chosen by a Maryland search committee that included acting president Nariman Farvardin and president-designate Dr. Wallace Loh.

Opinion: Assessing the Broad Picture of Asian-American Achievement

Opinion: Assessing the Broad Picture of Asian-American Achievement: When it comes to acquiring a college degree, there is a general assumption that Asian-Americans do it best. This is an erroneous assumption because many Asian-American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) subgroups fall far short of this assumed standard, with substantial numbers never graduating high school or college. It is also a dangerous assumption because this model-minority myth prevents the provision of public and private resources designated specifically for minority-serving institutions (MSIs), exacerbating a deleterious and downward spiral among underperforming AAPI subgroups.

Granted, the assumption has some truth to it. College graduation rates among Asian-Americans rank highest among all ethnic groups, at 65 percent, followed by Whites at 59 percent. The only racial/ethnic group, furthermore, to not see their young men falling behind their predecessors in postsecondary attainment is Asian-Americans.

ETS Report Notes Arrested Progress in Closing Black-White Achievement Gap

ETS Report Notes Arrested Progress in Closing Black-White Achievement Gap: For decades, the persistent achievement gap between Black and White students has vexed educators, policymakers and researchers. Equally troubling is the fact that there had been progress—significant improvement throughout the 1970s and ‘80s—that came to an abrupt halt.

A 39-point gap in National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading test scores between Black and White 13-year-olds in 1971, for instance, fell to 18 points by 1988. The gap widened in the 1990s before falling to a 21-point difference in 2008. The average math score of Whites in this same age group was 46 points higher than that of Black students in 1971. The gap narrowed to a 24-point difference in 1986.

Researchers at Educational Testing Service’s (ETS) Policy Information Center set out to explain the factors that contributed to those gains and the reasons progress halted, drawing on existing and new data to examine the role declining neighborhoods, race-neutral policies, concentrated poverty and single-parent family structures, among other things, play on children's achievement.

New College Teaches Young American Muslims : NPR

New College Teaches Young American Muslims : NPR: I don't know what I expected to find when I arrived at Zaytuna College in Berkeley, Calif., the country's brand new Muslim liberal arts college. Women in headscarves? Yes, for the most part. Men with heavy beards? No. A lot of prayer and fasting, since it's Ramadan? Absolutely.

What I didn't expect was 24-year-old Jamye Ford.

'I grew up as an AME, African-American Episcopal, in a very religious Southern family,' Ford says in the campus quad. 'I went to church every Sunday for hours at a time, I went to Bible study, did all of those things. And from a young age, I had curiosity about religion in general and other religions.'

Ford bought a Quran at a secondhand bookstore when he was 9 and memorized a few sura or passages, which he always remembered. He entered Columbia University at 16 and graduated with a double major in neuroscience and history. But he was drawn to the poetry of theQuran, and this summer, he began studying Arabic at Zaytuna.

'That was my first opportunity to be in a Muslim environment, and within a short time, a week, two weeks, I felt changed by that experience,' he says.

Sidebar - Appeals Court Again Rejects Racial Discrimination Claim - NYTimes.com

Sidebar - Appeals Court Again Rejects Racial Discrimination Claim - NYTimes.com: John Hithon, a black man, spent 13 tough years working his way into the lower ranks of management at a Tyson Foods chicken plant in Gadsden, Ala. He started out as a “live hanger,” hoisting 24 squirming birds onto moving metal hooks every minute. Then he moved up to what court records called “killing and picking.” He was later made a supervisor in charge of “eviscerating and deboning.”

But when two better jobs as shift supervisors opened up, Mr. Hithon was passed over by the plant manager, who was white, in favor of two white candidates from other Tyson plants. Mr. Hithon thought his skin color had something to do with it, and he sued for racial discrimination.

Educational Gaps Limit Brazil’s Reach - NYTimes.com

Educational Gaps Limit Brazil’s Reach - NYTimes.com: When Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was sworn in as Brazil’s president in early 2003, he emotionally declared that he had finally earned his “first diploma” by becoming president of the country.

One of Brazil’s least educated presidents — Mr. da Silva completed only the fourth grade — soon became one of its most beloved, lifting millions out of extreme poverty, stabilizing Brazil’s economy and earning near-legendary status both at home and abroad.

But while Mr. da Silva has overcome his humble beginnings, his country is still grappling with its own. Perhaps more than any other challenge facing Brazil today, education is a stumbling block in its bid to accelerate its economy and establish itself as one of the world’s most powerful nations, exposing a major weakness in its newfound armor.

“Unfortunately, in an era of global competition, the current state of education in Brazil means it is likely to fall behind other developing economies in the search for new investment and economic growth opportunities,” the World Bank concluded in a 2008 report.

Four Days, Nights: A Girls' Coming-Of-Age Ceremony : NPR

Four Days, Nights: A Girls' Coming-Of-Age Ceremony : NPR: On a wide grassy bank of the Missouri River on the Yankton Sioux/Ihanktonwan Oyate Reservation in South Dakota, Brook Spotted Eagle stands watching five young girls raise a tepee. It's early August, and the girls are taking part in a four-day coming-of-age ceremony revived in the 1990s by the Brave Heart Women's Society.

"I was part of the first group who went through this Isnati coming-of-age ceremony 13 years ago," Brook recalls. Brook's mother, Faith Spotted Eagle, is one of the women who re-established the Brave Hearts. With American and European contact, many such societies and ceremonies have been lost in the past 100 years. In 1994, Faith and the Brave Hearts interviewed grandmas from three states about what they remembered of the Isnati Awica Dowanpi coming-of-age ceremony.

"In the old days," Faith Spotted Eagle says, "as soon as a girl had her first moon, her menses, she would immediately be isolated from the rest of the camp and begin a four-day ceremony where she was taught by other women. So we symbolically set up one camp a year and have the girls come in for four days."

Muslim Americans Find Their Voice Amid The Shouts : NPR

Muslim Americans Find Their Voice Amid The Shouts : NPR: No one's really sure how many Americans are Muslim. The estimates range anywhere from 1 million to 7 million. But what's clear is that over the past few weeks and months, almost every poll that's been taken on Muslims has pointed to one conclusion: anti-Muslim sentiment is on the rise.

The majority of Americans — including New Yorkers — oppose the construction of an Islamic cultural center near the former site of the World Trade Center. In towns across the country, the voices of those who don't want mosques built in their neighborhoods are growing louder.

The open expressions of hostility have become so loud in recent months, that a coalition of Muslim groups is taking steps to remind people that American Muslims are Americans — the same as anyone else.

This week, they launched an online video campaign called 'My Faith, My Voice' — and the message is simple:

'I'm an American. I'm a Muslim. This is my faith. This is my voice.'

After Voluntary Deportation, Arizona State Grad Returns as U.S. Resident

After Voluntary Deportation, Arizona State Grad Returns as U.S. Resident: Oscar Vazquez knew he was taking a risk when he returned to Mexico for the first time in his adult life, starting what could have been a years-long odyssey to earn legal U.S. residency.

Turned out the wait was just 361 days, thanks to some political intervention. Vazquez was back in the U.S. Monday, visa in hand.

“Even though it took a year, I feel it came out good,” Vazquez said earlier this week.

The undocumented immigrant, a recent Arizona State University graduate, knew he would need to obtain the necessary documents if he ever wanted to put his hard-earned engineering degree to work.

Book Review - The Warmth of Other Suns - By Isabel Wilkerson - NYTimes.com

Book Review - The Warmth of Other Suns - By Isabel Wilkerson - NYTimes.com: In the winter of 1916, as Americans read the news of unimaginable slaughter in a distant yet rapidly spreading European war, it was easy to overlook stories like the one in The Chicago Defender reporting that several black families in Selma, Ala., had left the South. A popular African-American weekly, The Defender would publish dozens of such stories in the coming years, heralding the good jobs and friendly neighbors that awaited these migrants in Chicago, even printing train schedules to point the way north. Smuggled into Southern railroad depots by Pullman porters, dropped off by barnstorming black athletes and entertainers, The Defender emerged as both cheerleader and chronicler of an exodus that would lead about six million African-Americans to abandon the states of the Old Confederacy between 1915 and 1970. “If all of their dream does not come true,” it confidently predicted, “enough will come to pass to justify their actions.”

Formula to Grade Teachers’ Skill Gains Acceptance, and Critics - NYTimes.com

Formula to Grade Teachers’ Skill Gains Acceptance, and Critics - NYTimes.com: A growing number of school districts have adopted a system called value-added modeling to answer that question, provoking battles from Washington to Los Angeles — with some saying it is an effective method for increasing teacher accountability, and others arguing that it can give an inaccurate picture of teachers’ work.

The system calculates the value teachers add to their students’ achievement, based on changes in test scores from year to year and how the students perform compared with others in their grade.

People who analyze the data, making a few statistical assumptions, can produce a list ranking teachers from best to worst.

Use of value-added modeling is exploding nationwide. Hundreds of school systems, including those in Chicago, New York and Washington, are already using it to measure the performance of schools or teachers.