Morning Announcements: October 4, 2010

Reaching out to big business, President Barack Obama is set to announce a new program that links top companies with community colleges in hopes of ramping up America's job skills, the Associated Press report.

Michael Levine, the Executive Director of the Joan Ganz Conney Center, reviews Waiting for Superman in The Huffington Post. And you can read another review of the documentary in the Dallas South News.

In South Dakota, the state Education Department is collaborating with teachers, school administrators and others to take a new approach to improving academic achievement and graduation rates among American Indian students, who as a group lag behind the state’s non-Indian students, according to the Rapid City Journal.

In Georgia, state education officials are reviving a debate about whether to toss the current graduation test and instead require students to pass end-of-course tests in each subject as they go through their high school years, according to The Augusta Chronicle.

The State reports that South Carolina has flipped the switch on the first phase of a new student information system that officials say takes a quantum leap in technology that can track students' progress and find ways to improve instruction.

The Phi Delta Kappan asks, “Incompetent Teachers or Dysfunctional Systems"?

Morning Announcements: September 8, 2010

In an op-ed in the Providence Journal, Massachusetts secretary of education Paul Reville writes, “By adopting the Common Core, we’ve set a clearer, higher target for educational success. Now it’s time to see that all our children reach it.”

The Governor of Michigan would like lawmakers to require the school year to last more than 180 days.

The Columbus Dispatch editorial board asks “How can overall better performance go along with fewer kids graduating?”

Stateline.org takes a look at how states are grappling with a provision in the fine print of the Education Jobs Fund bill.

The New York Times profiles a teacher-led schools around the country.

Inside Higher Ed looks at why rural community colleges have done significantly better than their urban and suburban counterparts in the percentage increase of associate degrees awarded to women and minorities in science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines.

The New York Times magazine asks, "When Does Holding Teachers Accountable Go Too Far?"

The Washington Post writes about how D.C. schools might be affected if Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee decides to move on.

More than half of Hawaii's public school teachers leave within five years of being hired, according to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

Morning Announcements: June 21, 2010

A new University of Chicago report finds that people who receive GEDs fare little better economically than high school dropouts when factors such as their greater academic abilities are taken into consideration

According to a survey of 2,000 of last year’s college graduates, 80 percent moved back home after getting their diplomas.

The Detroit News editorial board is against recent legislation that would allow Michigan community colleges to grant four-year degrees in select high-need job areas.