Private Tutor for Math & Science Success

College aid falls far short of need
Needy students at Illinois’ public universities are straddling the biggest gap ever between skyrocketing tuition bills and stagnant pools of financial aid. Now more than $200 million short of funds to meet financial need, Illinois public universities must count on students to pay a far larger portion of the tuition bills.

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Student news

nsf.gov – News – Commission on 21st Century Education in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Holds First Meeting Aug. 3-4 – US National Science Foundation (NSF)
The National Science Board, the 24-member independent advisory body to the President and Congress on matters of national science and engineering policy, recently established a commission to set new directions for U.S. education from early childhood through undergraduate education (preK-16). The board also serves as the oversight and policy-setting body of the National Science Foundation.

Has kindergarten become an educational boot camp for kids?
Nation is weighing down its youngest citizens with responsibilities at a time when they should be learning to just get along.

MetroWestDailyNews.com – Columnists: New England’s education brand: up to 21st century challenges?
New England’s universities are famed across the globe. But today thousands of young New Englanders lack either the grades, or motivation, or both, to get into college. The prospect’s even dimmer for many laid-off manufacturing workers.

KELOLAND.COM: News for Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa
South Dakota Department of Education is providing more money for math education. The Sioux Falls district will get $156,000 a year for three years, as part of the South Dakota Counts program. The grant money will help teachers go beyond traditional classroom methods.

Henry Daily Herald, McDonough, GA – Summer school graduates savor second chance
About 60 students throughout Henry County graduated high school on Thursday in what some of them called their second chance.

“I see it more as their continuation toward the completion of a journey,” said Assistant Superintendent Greg Fields, keynote speaker at the commencement.

kare11.com :: KARE 11 TV – St. Paul students put classroom work to life
John Caraballo is a recent graduate of Johnson Senior High school and admits he wasn’t a whiz with numbers while in school, but he’s taken a special interest in math these days, since he sees how it can help him in his construction job.

“I’m getting better now cause it’s a skill I need to learn, math, mostly geometry, so all the fractions and everything. So yea, I’m getting pretty good at it right now,” says Caraballo.

Black Voice News Online – Math is Fun
Perhaps a first step “attitude change” toward correcting the tendency of Black youth to avoid math might come from them understanding that their Black African ancestors completely invented and perfected math to a most complex degree; that their ancestors’ brilliant thinking pattern seeds have been passed down and await flowering in their minds

The Lone Star State has voted for a new experiment in Texas education – indexing teacher bonuses to test scores. The higher the students score on generalized tests, the more money teachers would take home. The program is advertised as a basic market supply-and-demand solution to the vexing problem of dropping test scores across the nation.

The $260 million dollar experiment will try to prove whether a better paychecks for the 300,000 Texas teachers will translate to higher academic achievement for their students.

According to the Dallas Morning News story penned by Holly H. Hacker and Terrence Stutz, other states of the union are watching Texas closely since this bold implementation has its critics as well as its cheerleaders.

Those who defend the program like Gov. Rick Perry claim that this program will propel the State of Texas to the forefront of academic excellence.

Proponents also point out to the already existing cash incentive program of the U.S. Department of Education’s Teacher Incentive Fund which pays out $94 million in incentives to local and state education boards in the form of 15 grants if they can increase the tests cores in low-income district schools.

The critics insist similar programs in the past did not yield any significant results. They also add that such monetary incentives will place an undue focus on testing and test results, They argue that students need less emphasis on testing techniques and more on substantive learning.

The same news story reported that “with teacher salaries averaging just under $42,000 [in Texas], the maximum bonus of $10,000 would represent a compensation jump of nearly 25 percent.”

Florida, Minnesota and Colorado are the other states which are rewarding their best performing teachers with cash incentives.