Yahoo! News: Education News

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• Teachers union chief offers four steps to boost US results on PISA test
• Suspect in custody after Fla. school shooting
• Student debt report: More graduates have it ... and have more of it

Teachers union chief offers four steps to boost US results on PISA test Posted: 04 Dec 2013 02:49 PM PST The United States placed well out of the lead in an international test of 15-year-old students in science, math, and reading whose results were released this week. At a Monitor-hosted breakfast for reporters on Wednesday, Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers, offered four steps for improving the nation's performance on future versions of the Program for International Assessment (PISA) test. Results from of the 2012 PISA test given to 510,000 students in 65 countries showed that 29 countries or education systems had higher math scores than the US, while in science American 15-year-olds were outranked by their counterparts in 22 countries, and in reading by teens in 19 nations. Ms. Weingarten, who previously taught history at Clara Barton High School in Brooklyn, N.Y., began her list by noting that "the countries that out-compete us actually really value, deeply respect, and value public education." She argued that the PISA results offer "a big caution flag" for policies where public schools have to compete with other choices.

Suspect in custody after Fla. school shooting Posted: 04 Dec 2013 02:39 PM PST WINTER GARDEN, Fla. (AP) — Two Orlando-area high school students got into fight Wednesday at the bus pickup area and one of them opened fire, wounding the other, police said.

Student debt report: More graduates have it ... and have more of it Posted: 04 Dec 2013 11:23 AM PST Among the class of 2012, 71 percent graduated with debt – and of those, the average burden carried forward was $29,400, estimates the Project on Student Debt at The Institute for College Access & Success (TICAS), a nonprofit group with offices in Washington, D.C., and Oakland, Calif. That's up from 68 percent indebted in 2008, with the average debt rising about 6 percent a year. President Obama has proposed a college rating system to highlight affordability and value, and discussions are under way in Congress and among higher education institutions about how to rein in costs and the growing reliance on student loans. "Despite discouraging headlines, a college degree remains the best route to finding a job in this tight market. But students and families need to know that debt levels can vary widely from college to college," TICAS president Lauren Asher said in a statement Wednesday. One sign of the continued value of college: The unemployment rate for those with only a high school degree in 2012 was more than double the unemployment of those with a college degree (17.9 percent versus 7.7 percent).

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