What's happening in education this week?

In an article entitled "Duncan: Schools must improve to get stimulus money", a writer for the Associated Press wrote about how Education Secretary Arne Duncan plans to spend the $5 billion special fund in the economic stimulus bill. He said that schools must make drastic changes to get money from this special fund.

"We're going to reward those states and those districts that are willing to challenge the status quo and get dramatically better," Duncan said Monday at the White House.

With the tens of billions more dollars that schools will be getting through regular funds in the stimulus, Duncan wants the extra $5 billion to award the schools that actually do make change and spend their money wisely. I think that forcing schools to come up with innovative ways to close the achievement gap between black and Latino children is very important. I have always thought that schools should be held accountable with how they spend their money, especially from a federal level. Duncan specifically wants to see states improve teacher quality and get good teachers into high-poverty schools, set up sophisticated data systems to track student learning, boost the quality of academic standards and tests, and intervene to help struggling schools. These standards for receiving money, will ensure that the money is well spent on schools that are setting great examples. I also think these standards will encourage schools to work towards change in order to get the money that they want for their schools. I like that this article portrayed how the money from the federal government would have to be trickled down then to the states, school districts, administrators, and finally to teachers and students.

The second article that stood out to me this week was "FBI confirms probe into fights at Texas school." Although concise, this article did not need to say much in order to get the point across. The FBI is investigating allegations of civil rights violations at a Texas school for mentally disabled people where workers allegedly videotaped watching fights between residents. The six workers are accused of organizing a "fight club" where mentally and developmentally disabled residents of the facility fought each other for the staff's entertainment. This utterly disgusts me and I am very happy that the FBI is stepping in to make it a civil rights case. As of last Friday, arrest warrants for the six workers on charges of injury to a disabled person were issued. I hope that these workers receive the punishment that they deserve for taking advantage of people the way that they did. They were in complete violation of these students individual rights, and therefore should be punished.

The third article I found this week was that actually uplifting was "Turning on to Reading, High School." Found in the Washington Post, this article wrote about the new program that Highland Elementary School in Silver Spring has created. They have high school athletes coming to the 5th grade classes to read to students. Not only does this show students a great example of who to look up to, but also students become more familiar with everything that high school is. The specific high school senior and football team captain Kelson Patterson loved working with the class. He was able to ask them questions and get tested himself when they came back at him with many questions.

"Patterson, recently awarded a full football scholarship to the University of Rhode Island, told the students that his success would not have come without good grades and character to match."

I think it is wonderful that newspapers such as the Washington Post are writing articles about good programs that schools are instilling in their classrooms. Often, the media only shares stories of what is wrong with our schools and I believe, especially in a town as influencial at Washington, that it is good for everyday citizens and politicians to hear these great changes in schools that are highly encouraging for the future of our schools.

What is going on in our schools?

The first article that I want to write about this week is one entitled "School Lunches Too Fatty and Sugary, Critics Say." I found this article in the Yahoo News today. I think it sends an important message. The article is discussing how recent studies have found that our nation's school cafeterias are not doing everything that they can to improve the health of students. The lunches still contain too many fats, saturated fats, and sodium. Even the new president's chef, Sam Kass from Chicago, has stated that "the national shortcomings in school lunches are due in part to the use of donated surplus agricultural commodities that result from government subsidies." Mary Ford, a registered dietitian and professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota, and author of the journal editorial, urged another action.

"We need to explore other ways of making change, which could include items such as providing more training and technical assistance to schools, providing more funding for nutrition education," she said. "It also may be worth considering more laws or regulations to limit the availability of certain types of food, such as whole or 2 percent milk."

I completely agree with Mary Ford on this fact. Providing more funding for better food in schools could help as well. Basically, our schools have the standards that they need, they just have to implement actions to meet those standards, otherwise the standards are pointless. I believe that President Obama has the right agenda in regard to our nation's youth. He has spoken many times about children needing to be more active and I hope that he and his cabinet will follow through with this agenda.

The second article that I found interesting was an article about the mixed reviews that Obama received from his speech about education last week. This article listed that:

President Barack Obama said he wants the United States to have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020 and asked every American to complete a year or more of college or career training.

It also stated that Obama said that federal stimulus dollars will expand educational opportunities for preschoolers and college students who need financial help. Many were disappointed that Obama did not mention the fact that so many of our nation's schools are failing, while others commended him highly for acknowledging the importance of everyone attending college or training school in order for our country to succeed. I personally think that these expectations are a little high, but am excited that he is not limiting his goals. Setting high goals only means that success has to be made in some way or another.

Finally, I found an article that interested me was one that stated that the Environmental Protection Agency will be testing the air in schools across the nation. They are testing the air for toxic chemicals because questions on the air quality around some school have been raised, and the EPA has implemented a $2.25 million program. This program will set up monitors will focus on toxic chemicals that are known to cause cancer, respiratory and neurological problems — especially in children, who are more susceptible than adults because they are still growing. They are still unsure what can be done once they or if they find any toxic chemicals in the air, but the fact that they are spending so much time and money to keep students safe is important to me.