Yahoo! News: Education News

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• Kansas speech by Michelle Obama draws complaints
• 9 Pennsylvania colleges target of gender complaint
• Strike calls expected at teacher conferences
• Sallie Mae faces probe for massively ripping off soldiers on federal student loans
• Neighbors rushed in vain to help in California bus crash that killed 10
• American Samoa schools reopen after pink eye woes
• 10 Historically Black Colleges Where Freshmen Return
• Aiming High
• Engaged pair, teen athlete among dead in bus crash
• Teachers, staff return to Pittsburgh-area school where 22 stabbed
• Teachers return to school where 22 were stabbed
• Colleges seek to improve remedial programs
• Feds revisit safety rules after Calif. bus crash
• Some High School Students Skip Lunch for More Class Time

Kansas speech by Michelle Obama draws complaints Posted: 18 Apr 2014 03:25 PM PDT TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — If expanding the guest list to include Michelle Obama at graduation for high school students in the Kansas capital city means fewer seats for friends and family, some students and their parents would prefer the first lady not attend.

9 Pennsylvania colleges target of gender complaint Posted: 18 Apr 2014 03:45 AM PDT A women's legal organization has filed discrimination complaints against nine universities in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, alleging the schools have repeatedly failed to provide equal ...

Strike calls expected at teacher conferences Posted: 17 Apr 2014 11:08 PM PDT Representatives from the country's two biggest teachers' unions are gathering in Brighton and Birmingham for this weekend's annual conferences, which are expected to hear calls for action over pay and pensions. The National Union of Teachers (NUT) will meet in Brighton while members of NASUWT will gather in Birmingham. Following last month's NUT action which closed schools in England and Wales, there are expected to be more calls for strikes. NUT general secretary Christine Blower warned that "teacher morale is at a dangerously low ebb" while NASUWT general secretary Chris Keates said the government had waged a "relentless assault on public education and the teaching profession".

Sallie Mae faces probe for massively ripping off soldiers on federal student loans Posted: 17 Apr 2014 09:18 PM PDT Sallie Mae is in danger of losing lucrative loan servicing contracts with the U.S. Department of Education and some of its high-level employees may face criminal penalties pending the outcome of a probe involving evidence that the student-loan behemoth has cheated active-duty soldiers who have taken out federal student loans. The investigation into how Sallie Mae treats soldiers was initially revealed by the company in August, according to The Huffington Post. However, the inquiry was initially focused on private loans, not the federal student loans that are guaranteed and subsidized by American taxpayers. On Wednesday, a Sallie Mae news release about quarterly earnings addressed the probe.

Neighbors rushed in vain to help in California bus crash that killed 10 Posted: 17 Apr 2014 07:58 PM PDT By Sharon Bernstein ORLAND, California (Reuters) - Newly released recordings of 911 emergency calls revealed the helplessness of stunned residents in the California town of Orland who witnessed the aftermath of last week's fiery crash between a FedEx truck and a tour bus that killed 10 people. The California Highway Patrol made the recordings public on Thursday as investigators returned to the scene of the accident, painstakingly driving a pristine white tour bus back and forth over the charred and bubbled surface of Interstate 5 in an effort to reconstruct the April 10 collision. I'm running over to see what it is." Five high school students and five adults, including the two drivers, died when the FedEx tractor trailer swerved across the highway median and slammed head-on into a motor coach filled with about 50 Los Angeles-area teenagers on their way to visit Humboldt State University in Arcata, California. A blast unleashed by the impact was so loud that it was heard throughout nearby Orland, an agricultural community about 90 miles north of Sacramento.

American Samoa schools reopen after pink eye woes Posted: 15 Apr 2014 06:47 AM PDT PAGO PAGO, American Samoa (AP) — Public schools in American Samoa fully reopened Monday after some 3,000 students and teachers contracted pink eye, an outbreak that prompted tourism officials to warn cruise passengers heading to the group of islands in the South Pacific.

10 Historically Black Colleges Where Freshmen Return Posted: 15 Apr 2014 06:00 AM PDT The U.S. News Short List, separate from our overall rankings, is a regular series that magnifies individual data points in hopes of providing students and parents a way to find which undergraduate or graduate programs excel or have room to grow in specific areas. At historically black colleges and universities, many students struggle to make it past freshman year. Some HBCUs -- as they're often called -- excel at getting students to enroll again in the fall after their first year. At Spelman College in Atlanta, for example, the average freshman retention rate for first-year students starting in fall 2008 through 2011 was 88 percent.

Aiming High Posted: 15 Apr 2014 12:00 AM PDT There's an MRCTV video circulating on the Internet that features a man with a microphone asking college students in Washington, D.C., to name just one member of the United States Senate. Survey data confirm that large numbers of Americans lack even rudimentary knowledge of what used to be called "eighth-grade civics." A survey by Common Core found that 25 percent of American high school students thought Christopher Columbus sailed after the year 1750, and about a third of them did not know the Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of speech and religion. In McLean, Va., a suburb of the District of Columbia, Langley High School has for the past 22 years conducted a program called "Case Day." The brainchild of teacher Steven Catlett and former clerk of the U.S. Supreme Court General William Suter, Case Day involves the entire school (but most intensively the seniors in government class) in studying a pending Supreme Court case. Government teachers Allison Cohen and Micah Herzig, both former lawyers, try to choose cases that will engage teenagers.

Engaged pair, teen athlete among dead in bus crash Posted: 14 Apr 2014 04:58 PM PDT LOS ANGELES (AP) — Five high school students and three chaperones have been confirmed dead after a charter bus heading to Humboldt State University was struck by a FedEx tractor-trailer in Northern California. The bus and big rig drivers were also killed.

Teachers, staff return to Pittsburgh-area school where 22 stabbed Posted: 14 Apr 2014 12:39 PM PDT Four critically injured boys remained hospitalized following the attack last Wednesday at Franklin Regional High School in Murrysville. A 16-year-old student at the school, Alex Hribal, has been charged as an adult with attempted homicide and aggravated assault. "As we begin our recovery phase, it is imperative that the district begins to create a normal and calm educational environment for our students who are currently on campus and for those who will be returning to Franklin Regional Senior High School," read a statement on the website. Hribal is scheduled to appear in Westmoreland County Magisterial Court on April 30 before Judge Charles Conway.

Teachers return to school where 22 were stabbed Posted: 14 Apr 2014 10:16 AM PDT MURRYSVILLE, Pa. (AP) — Teachers on Monday attended a counseling session at a church and then returned to a high school where a student stabbed 21 others and a security guard last week, but they scuttled plans to march the half block between the two to avoid the media.

Colleges seek to improve remedial programs Posted: 14 Apr 2014 09:39 AM PDT BALTIMORE (AP) — The odds have long been stacked against students like those in Edward Ennels' remedial math classes at Baltimore City Community College.

Feds revisit safety rules after Calif. bus crash Posted: 14 Apr 2014 06:36 AM PDT RED BLUFF, Calif. (AP) — Federal transportation authorities are investigating ways to minimize death and injuries in bus crashes following the fiery wreck that left 10 dead when a FedEx truck slammed into a tour bus carrying high school students in Northern California.

Some High School Students Skip Lunch for More Class Time Posted: 14 Apr 2014 05:00 AM PDT Some high school students are skipping lunch period to pack in something else -- another academic class. "Most often these students want to take an additional honors or AP course, or an elective like a foreign language, band or choir," Jim Szczepaniak, a community relations director at Niles Township High Schools District 219 in Skokie, Ill., said in an email. District 219 allows high school students, with parental consent, to forgo lunch to take another class. Only about 300 of 4,800 high school students in District 219 don't take a lunch, Szczepaniak says.

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