Helping Teachers

Recent hikes in tuition and fees will affect students in Abilene programs offered through Texas Tech Health Sciences Center.

And students who plan to attend Texas Tech, which is a separate entity from the health program, will be paying about $500 more a year after regents in June approved a 5.9 percent increase in tuition and fees.

The increase, in part to offset deep state budget cuts, bumps up the cost of two 15-hour semesters at Tech from $8,560 last year to $9,065 this year.

Costs for students attending TTUHSC’s School of Pharmacy and School of Nursing will increase by 6.67 percent and 8.38 percent, respectively,

Students in Abilene’s programs will not necessarily pay as much in total tuition and fees as those in Lubbock, said Elmo Cavin, TTUHSC’s vice president of finance and administration.

A typical, 15-hour student in Tech’s School of Nursing, for example, will pay $3,620 instead of $3,340, in total tuition and fees. Of the $3,620, $2,550 is tuition.

“But students in Abilene do not avail themselves of some of the same services as those in Lubbock,” he said.

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Through its foundation, the family that founded Walmart announced today that it’s giving $49 million to an effort to increase the number of teachers in urban schools.

The Walton Family Foundation is making the three-year grant to Teach For America. For two decades, Teach For America has placed recent college graduates in urban public schools on two-year contracts.

Nearly 300 Teach for America teachers worked in L.A. classrooms during the school year that just ended, said the Walton Foundation’s Jim Blew. “TFA focuses on low-income urban communities as well as rural communities,” said Blew. “In the longer term, the benefits translate into a leadership pipeline, for the education reform and parental choice movement.”

The Walton Foundation is a big supporter of charter schools. Michelle Rhee, who led Washington D.C. schools through controversial reforms, is a Teach for America alumna.

Critics of that organization say two years isn’t long enough for a beginning teacher to learn the profession. It pl

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By the time Gary Cuccia and his family started thinking seriously about dating violence, the worst had already happened.

Jodi Cuccia of Monroeville is unable to hold back her emotions while reading a poem about her daughter at a rally. Rep. Scott Conklin and the family of Demi Brae Cuccia held a rally to support a bill to require teen dating violence education in Pennsylvania public schools.

Cuccias daughter, Demi Brae, was murdered by an ex-boyfriend. Witnesses later said he had been controlling, threatening and abusive to the 16-year-old cheerleader from the Pittsburgh suburb of Monroeville.

That was nearly four years ago, in August 2007.

As a father, I knew nothing about this before my daughter was taken from me, Cuccia said. My daughter never experienced domestic violence before this. My family never experienced it. A lot of parents have no idea this can happen.

A new set of guidelines under development by the Pennsylvania Department of Education is meant to help other families.

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My eyes bulge paranoid as I try to get my bearings. When you wake up quick, for the first few seconds you don’t know who or where you are. In half a second I’ve scanned the plane and know that I’m safe this time. I unclench my fists and jaw.  In two seconds I remember I’m on a plane to Cyprus and must have dozed off. I breathe; I’m not in that street in Cambridge or any of the conflict I’m heading for. What kind of a idiot has nightmares about the learned spires of Cambridge? I remember why I’m traveling it seems like a dream.

I’ve slept a lot of places near strangers – buses, scummy hostels, at parties with ashtrays as pillows.  I’ve slept with quite a few strangers, but let’s not go there now.

When I’m asleep I know what’s going on around me most of the time. Only strong dreams like the one I’ve just had can take that away. Turbulence is rocking the plane and it must have shaken me awake. When I come to somewhere I’m not used to – and that’s a lot of days, I’m ready to fight. I can have a conversation before I open my eyes. It’s fun for freaking people out.  Wh Full post…

A recent report by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project shows that college students use the Internet and own tech gadgets more than the rest of the general public.

While all young adults are more likely than the general public to use social media, non-students were slightly more active–88 percent of non-students reported using social networking sites, compared to 78 percent of community college students, 82 percent of graduate students and 86 percent of undergraduates.

In terms of gadget ownership, undergraduate and graduate students have more tech toys than both community college students and college-aged non-students. Specifically, more undergrads and grads owned a laptop, iPod or mp3 player and e-book reader. Additionally, more graduate students than students of other educational backgrounds owned a desktop computer.

The report also showed that more undergraduate and graduate students than community college and non-students were more likely to have fast Internet connections.

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