A Boost for Vocational Education
Posted on October 11th, 2010 by Jaimie Schock
Lincoln Unified school district in Stockton, California, is betting that the newly-opened Jeff Wright Engineering and Construction Academy will be well worth its $8.5 million investment. Some 500 students will study topics ranging from carpentry to computerized drafting to mechanical engineering.
Filed under: K-12 Education News | Comments Off on A Boost for Vocational Education
Tags: Education Policy, Mechanical engineering, Public Policy, Technology Education, Vocational Education
Davis Guggenheim, who won an Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth, now tackles another big issue: poor education. America spends more than any other developed country on education, but its students attain bottom-bumping test scores. In Guggenheim’s new film, Waiting for “Superman,” the villains are America’s two largest teachers unions.
Many education experts decry the length of America’s school year, saying it’s too skimpy and a century out of date. Now, President Obama has stepped into the fray, insisting the school year should be lengthened, and that teachers who perform badly should be fired.
Many American children engage in no physical activity outside of school, and slashed state budgets mean even fewer phys-ed classes in some districts. But new studies indicate that aerobic exercise can strengthen minds, as well as bodies.
The Obama Administration has pushed for greater use of merit pay to reward teachers when students make gains in standardized tests. Yet, a new study has found that merit payments of up to $15,000 didn’t improve academic performance.
Schools and public libraries in poor and rural communities may soon get a faster and lower-cost way to hook up to the Internet as part of an overhaul of the federal E-Rate program. An anticipated FCC order would let them use federal dollars to buy unused communications lines. 
A presidential advisory panel is calling for the federal government to recruit and train 100,000 “great STEM teachers” over the next decade, recognize a master corps of the best educators, and create 1,000 schools devoted to science, technology, engineering and math.
The defeat of Washington, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty in the Sept. 14 Democratic primary could have repercussions for school reform efforts nationwide. That’s because much of the campaign revolved around Fenty’s hand-picked public schools chief, Michelle Rhee, and her high-profile shake-up of the city’s troubled school system.
