Pell Grant in danger

Supporters sign petition

            Students, educators and past recipients have made their voices heard in the last week regarding Congress’s discussion on cutting federal Pell Grant funding to lower the national debt.

            According to Maureen Downey’s “Get Schooled” blog, which appears in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Pell Grants are estimated to cost the U.S. $40 billion in 2012. She reported that the budget passed by the House of Representatives would prevent 1.5 million more students from being eligible for the financial aid.

            “Advocates counter that Pell Grants are already failing to keep up with actual college costs,” Downey said. “Thirty years ago, the maximum Pell award covered about three-fourths of the college costs.” She added that the current annual cap is $5,550.

            Some Republicans in favor of cutting Pell Grant have equated the program to welfare, including U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Montana. Downey reported that during an April radio interview with Blog Talk Radio, Rehberg said the program was becoming welfare of the 21^st century.

“…You can go to school, collect your Pell Grants, get food stamps, low-income energy assistance, section 8 housing, and all of a sudden we find ourselves subsidizing people that don’t have to graduate from college. And there ought to be some kind of commitment and endgame,” he said to Blog Talk Radio.

It was later reported y KECI 13 that Rehberg said his statement was taken out of context. He said the federal government would not be able to keep up with the demand of the program, just like it couldn't keep up with the welfare system.

But not all of Congress feels the same way about Pell Grant.  U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Maryland, encouraged people on Twitter to voice their opinions on the matter. “I say let’s keep Pell Grants-Republicans say slash Pell Grants to protect tax breaks for the pampered & prosperous. Start tweeting on that!” she tweeted on July 19.

Educators and other Pell supporters retweeted the same message last week, including Michelle Rhee, CEO/Founder of StudentsFirst.org. “10 million hard-working college students rely on #Pell grants to afford college. Protect their funding and futures,” she tweeted on July 22.

Cathy Crea, a professor in St. Paul, Minn., tweeted “Most of my students are #Pell Grant recipients and would be unable to attend college without that federal money.”

While many supporters are passionate about the program because they were recipients or know someone who was, Rich Williams and Justin Draeger make a more rational point in a USA Today editorial. “Deficit reduction, like education policy, should focus on ensuring a stable and sustainable economy,” Williams and Draeger wrote. “If that is the goal, cutting funding to higher education and job training programs is the wrong approach.”

            The editorial argues that higher education is a good investment for a nation because it leads to greater wealth among individuals and more job options. “Higher-earning college graduates also pay more in taxes, are less likely to end up in prison or on welfare    and, according to 2010 Department of Labor Statistics analyses, are more likely to give back to their community through volunteering.”

            More than 17,000 people had signed a petition as of July 23 on Change.org opposing the potential cuts to Pell Grant. For more information on Pell Grant and other education issues follow Bohemian Jean’s education list on Twitter.

The list includes Education Week reporter Michele McNeil, “Get Schooled” blogger Maureen Downey, StudentsFrist.org founder Michelle Rhee and education organizations College Success, Campus Progress, American Association of State Colleges and Universities and U.S. News Education.

Obama seeks $50 billion for education

More spending for college prep and special ed

            States may be cutting education budgets to make up for revenue shortfalls, but President Barack Obama requested more money for the U.S. Department of Education.

            Obama requested $50.7 billion in discretionary appropriations for the department of education. According to the department’s website, the request was $4.5 billion more than the 2010 appropriated budget.

            A 2011 budget summary, illustrated in this graph, shows that special education grants and the College and Career Ready Students program are the president’s highest priorities and have been since he took office.

About $14.5 million is budgeted for College Ready programs and $12.5 million is budgeted for special education grants. Both budgets have stayed relatively the same since 2009.

            Obama’s budget request did include a $3 billion increase in K-12 education programs and $1.35 billion to expand his Race to the Top state initiatives. The budget reaffirms Obama’s goal of recruiting and retaining effective teachers by funding $950 billion worth of competitive grants to school districts that build comprehensive curriculum.

            Obama also asked for a significant increase to the School Turnaround Grant funding. In 2009 and 2010, $546 million was budgeted for School Turnaround, but $900 million is budgeted for 2011. Tony Romm with The Hill reported that the grants were aimed at improving the graduation rates and academic achievements.

            “However, that money is conditional on low-performing schools adopting drastic reforms in the coming year — measures that include firing staffs, establishing charter systems or shuttering their facilities indefinitely.” Romms wrote.

Charter controversy continues

Charter controversy continues       

Education officials in Georgia are still debating the pros and cons of charter schools over traditional education system models.

            The issue gained more national attention in May when the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that the 2007 law that created the Georgia Charter Schools Commission was unconstitutional. The court stated the commission unlawfully granted the state authority to approve and fund charter schools over the objection of local school boards.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that the ruling affected 16,500 students by voiding the operating agreements with 16 charter schools. Tony Roberts, president of the Georgia Charter Schools Association, told the AJC that the court’s decision was a travesty.

“The majority of the Georgia Supreme Court has just found 16,000 innocent children in Georgia guilty of choosing a better education,” Roberts said. “And even worse, the justices have sentenced them, in many cases, to failing or inadequate schools."

            According to a NewsMax article, former President Bill Clinton has been a long-time supporter of charter schools, and the number of charter schools increased by 2,000 during his presidency. There are currently 113 charter schools in Georgia.

Clinton was the keynote speaker June 21 during the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools conference in Atlanta. He said government influence on education needed to be limited because the public no longer had trust in the government.

“People have given up on us because it looks like a food fight most of the time,” he said during his speech. “This is not about ideology. It is not about theology. It is about what we can do to give our kids a brighter tomorrow by putting our country back in the futures business.”

The U.S. Department of Education released an evaluation report in 2010 on the impacts of charter schools. The study evaluated 36 charter schools in 15 states from 2004-2006. The analysis found that charter schools serving more low-income or low-achieving students had statistically improved math test scores. But charter schools serving more students with higher income or higher achievement had statistically negative effects on math test scores.

The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools website states that charter schools close the achievement gap, offer students smaller class sizes and provide better opportunities for students who live in underserved communities. WSB Atlanta gives a local charter school a closer look in this video.

            “The recent ruling by the Supreme Court is unfortunate because it makes it more difficult for these high-performing schools to reach families, but it won't stop Georgia parents from demanding more high-quality public charter school options,” said Peter C. Groff, president and CEO of NAPCS, in a press release.

            While the U.S. Department of Education study found that charter schools did not have a statistically significant impact on student achievement, it did find that charter schools positively affected parent and student satisfaction with school.

In response to the Georgia Supreme Court ruling, the Georgia State Board of Education granted 11 of the 16 affected schools State-Chartered Special School status. The remaining commission schools will come before the board for the new status at a later time.

“Today’s action by the State Board ensures that the students affected by the recent Supreme Court decision will still get to go to the school they originally chose,” State Superintendent John Barge stated in a press release.

The Georgia Department of Education defines a charter school as a public school that operates under a contract approved by the local board of education. The contract allows the school to request waivers from state requirements giving it more flexibility in exchange for greater accountability with performance objectives.

But each state feels differently about the concept of what a charter school should be. The Center for Education Reform conducted a survey in 2008 on adults and their attitudes toward charter schools.

State-by-State Highlights California: Seventy-one percent of respondents (vs. 69 percent nationally) preferred having choices of schools other than the one to which a child is assigned based on where the child lives. Connecticut: Twenty-six percent of respondents (vs. 20 percent nationally) correctly identified charter schools as "public" schools when asked to pick from a list that also included private, religious or parochial, and magnet schools. Georgia: Sixty-two percent of respondents (vs. 59 percent nationally) supported the concept of "considering student performance when deciding how to compensate teachers" and agreed with the idea that "a teacher whose students actually perform well would receive a higher salary and additional financial rewards." Missouri: Seventy-eight percent of respondents said they would be very or somewhat likely to move their child out of a school if the child felt unsafe. New Jersey: The words "Accountability" and "Innovation" resonated most with respondents being viewed favorably by 88 percent and 82 percent of respondents respectively. New York: Seventy-one percent of respondents supported "allowing communities to create new public schools - called charter schools - that would be held accountable for student results and would be required to meet the same academic standards/testing requirements as other public schools but not cost taxpayers additional money." Wyoming: Fifty-nine percent of those surveyed feel that more than one group (beyond local school boards) should have the authority to create charter schools.

SOURCE: The Center for Education Reform

‘Absent’ fathers on the rise

Fathers present are making kids a priority

While Father’s Day is a day of cookouts, homemade cards and appreciation for some, for others it’s a reminder of what they’ve been missing.
A new National Survey of Family Growth study analyzed by the Pew Research Center revealed good news and bad news for fathers and their children. The NSFG study found that fathers living in the same home as their children are spending more quality time with them, but the number of absent fathers has increased.
As shown in a graph from U.S. Census Bureau population surveys, more than one-in-four fathers with children 18 and younger now live apart from their children. Only 11 percent of children in the U.S. lived apart from their fathers in 1960. That number increased to 27 percent by 2010.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey and 1960 Census of Population. Graph: Pew Research Center

The Huffington Post hit some of the study’s highlights. Gretchen Livingston, co-author of the analysis report, said an increase in divorce rates and a decrease in marriage rates could be partially to blame for the increase in absent fathers.
“We see that the share of children living apart from their dads has more than doubled from 11 percent in 1960 to 27 percent in 2008, and at that same time we see that three-fold increase in divorce,” she said. “Clearly the trends fit together.”
Pew also found that income, education, age, race and ethnicity are strong indicators of whether a father lives in the same home as his children. Fathers with less income and education are more likely to be an absent father.
About 44 percent of Black fathers live separately from their children, but only 21 percent of white fathers live separately. Thirty-five percent of Hispanic fathers live separately.
"Whites do have lower divorce rates and they are less likely to live apart from their kids; blacks do have higher divorce rates and they are more likely to live apart from their kids," Livingston told the Huffington Post. "But with Hispanics, they actually have relatively low divorce rates but you see that they are more likely to live apart from their kids than whites."
The good news is that Pew found that the father’s role in the home is changing for the better. In 1965, fathers with children in the home only spent 2.6 hours a week caring for the children. In 2000, married fathers spent 6.5 hours a week carrying for the children.
Illustrated in a graph based on fathers with children between the ages of 5-18, fathers living with their children clearly spend more time that the fathers who live apart from their children.

Source: Pew Research Center calculations of the 2006-08 National Survey of Family Growth. Graphic: Pew Research Center

An article from PR Newswire reported that National Fatherhood Initiative research found that about 24 million children live without their father in the home. The organization’s data, outlined in the sixth-edition research book “Father Facts,” found that “across nearly every measure of child well-being – academic, economic, behavioral, emotional, and social – children who live absent their fathers are significantly more likely to suffer negative consequences.”
In the video from the Associated Press, President Obama uses his weekly address to discuss the importance of being a good father. His tips during the address included quality time, structure and unconditional love.

Source: The Associated Press

President Obama weekly address: "Father's Day"

Palin emails underwhelming

Reporters dig for newsworthy morsels

Reporters anticipating the release of Sarah Palin’s emails to be of Wiki Leaks magnitude were sorely disappointed.
Media outlets seem to be struggling to find anything worth reporting following yesterday’s release of 24,000 pages of emails written during Palin’s term as governor of Alaska.
Rachel Weiner, with The Washington Post, reported Friday that Palin faced rumors of her fifth child, Trig, actually being her daughter Bristol’s child long before she became Sen. John McCain’s vice presidential candidate.
Palin emailed staffers and her husband Todd Palin on April 6, 2008, 12 days before Trig was born, regarding the rumors. “Bristol does want it squashed — we just don’t know how to do so without making it a bigger issue. . . . I figured it was them or [former Palin staffer John] Bitney,” Palin wrote.
Even after Trig’s birth, Palin sent out several emails discussing how to handle the rumors. “I wish I could shame people into ceasing such gossip about a teen, but can’t figure out how to do that,” she wrote in an April 22 email.
The Huffington Post reported today that Palin claimed she wasn’t worried about any negative backlash from the emails during an interview last weekend with "Fox News Sunday."
"I think every rock in the Palin household that could ever be kicked over and uncovered anything, it's already been kicked over," she said during the interview. "I don't think there's anything private in our family now. A lot of those emails obviously weren't meant for public consumption. They are between staff members. They're probably between family members."
According to the Huffington Post, Palin’s emails contained conversations to her staffers about McCain’s positions on certain topics, including resource development and oil drilling in Alaska.
“If anyone can help me hear from him (McCain) on that, our state would appreciate it. I'll have a tough time explaining my support for him until I can say I spoke with him about my concerns re: pro-environmental stands he's taking that could hurt Alaska,” Palin wrote in a February 2008 email.
       The Daily Beast read between the lines, claiming to find an overarching trend of Palin obsessing over her portrayal in the media. She wrote to staffers in February 2007 that she wanted to keep track of news clippings and interviews.
      "I need folks to really help ramp up accurate counter comments to the misinformation that’s being spread out there," she wrote. However, months later she wrote that doing such wasn’t worth the time and energy.
But media outlets weren’t the only ones going after Palin. Yahoo! News reported today that Palin’s emails revealed death threats after Palin became the vice presidential candidate. An email from someone identifying himself as Dominique Villacroux accused Palin’s candidacy of being one of “ultra neoconservatism and ultra neoliberalism.”
“She doesn't belong to the NRA to support the right of each citizen to have weapons in an aim of self-defence (sic), but just to support the right of every Southern white citizen to shoot all non-white people legally! Sarah Palin MUST BE KILLED!” Villacroux wrote.
A Reuters story, summarizing the email findings, reported that the emails were released to anyone willing to pay $725 for copies plus the cost of delivery.
Now a complete catalog of Palin’s email correspondence can be found at http://www.crivellawest.net/palin2011/default.html.
For more current news summaries, visit educatedechoes.blogspot.com.

Google catches 'phishing' scam

Google urges users to heighten their security settings after discovering Wednesday that a scam hacked into personal Gmail accounts of U.S. and Asian government officials, Chinese political activists, military personnel and journalists.
 Eric Grosse, Google engineering director, responded to the incident in a Google blog post. He said the attack likely originated in Jinan, China.
 While most schemes are designed to steal identities, Grosse wrote that the latest effort “seems to have been to monitor the contents of these users’ emails, with the perpetrators apparently using stolen passwords to change peoples’ forwarding and delegation settings.”
 David Goldman with CNN reported it was a “massive phishing scheme” that was successful in hacking hundreds of personal email accounts.
 Chris Ortman, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, told CNN that the agency was aware of the incident." We are working with Google and our federal partners to review the matter, offer analysis of any malicious activity, and develop solutions to mitigate further risk,” he said.
 But this is not the first time Google has claimed a password-hacking scheme originating from China, according to NPR. Another Gmail attack occurred more than a year ago in which hackers were able to break through Google's security systems.
 Goldman with CNN reported the previous attack eventually led to Google ending its agreement with the Chinese government to censor certain search results, and the company physically moved its servers out of the country. However, the Wednesday attack was not successful in hacking Google’s security systems.
 Grosse wrote in his blog that hackers take advantage of people who aren’t technologically savvy by using malware and phishing scams to trick users into sharing their password. He said Google would ever ask for a users password through an email form.

A massive phishing scam hacked hundreds of personal Gmail accounts,
including those of U.S. and Asian government officials, Chinese political
activists, military personnel and journalists.


 The Huffington Post reported that the U.S. has warned that a large-scale, devastating cyber attack could result in real-world military retaliation, but analysts say it could be difficult to detect its origin with full accuracy.
 Grosse wrote that Google users could improve their security by enabling a two-step verification system, using a stronger password and check your email settings for suspicious forwarding addresses. “Please spend ten minutes today taking steps to improve your online security so that you can experience all that the Internet offers—while also protecting your data.”

Garden grows food, community

Gardeners in Rabun County, Georgia are hoping to grow more than herbs and vegetables in the Old School Garden this year.
Local organizers of the Old School Gardens said the mission is to create and encourage local sustainable food sources while also building community. A nonprofit organization Sustainable Mountain Living Community sponsors the community garden located in downtown Clayton.

Rabun County commissioners donated the space to the group three years ago, but the plots have expanded since then and a waiting list has formed. With the state of the economy and the increasing cost of food has raised awareness about the importance of raising food locally and organically.
Beginning gardeners and experienced planters work side by side and help each other with tips, watering and keeping the critters out of the garden. The local 4-H Club and extension agent helped build a tool shed and the Rabun County High School agriculture department donated transplants for the gardeners.

New gardener Ron Lindahn of Rabun Gap said he was excited about the community garden efforts in the county. "Not only is the price of food rising, but it's important to know where your food comes from," he said.
Lindahn said the community garden allowed people to see where the food came from and who handled it before it reached the table. Even with little experience, he said gardeners were able to grow more than they could eat, and they gave a lot to others. "I think it's great, and we should all do a lot more of it," he said.

Gardeners also commit to giving a portion of their harvest to charities in the community. The Old School Garden donated 440 pounds of the total 720 of produce harvested last year.
SMLC is now pursuing another goal to create a community kitchen and cannery. The organization is seeking grants to renovate a portion of the Clayton Municipal Complex into a commercial kitchen and cannery.