Yahoo! News: Education News

Gov. Chris Christie to require lead testing in New Jersey public schools
Over 90 Detroit Schools Close as Teachers Hold 'Sick Out' in Fight for Paychecks
Detroit teachers to consider next move after mass sick-out
Black Students Take on More Debt than Asian, White Low-Income Students
Sick-out by teachers shuts nearly all Detroit public schools
The Latest: Hundreds of Detroit teachers picket over pay
Why are 100 Detroit schools closed today?
Watch robots go medieval on one another at the FIRST competition
Detroit public schools shut with teachers in 'sickout' protest over pay
The Sickout in Detroit
Sick-out by Detroit teachers prompts 43 school closures
Latest: Sick-out prompts 43 Detroit school closures
Michael Bloomberg Tells College Graduates to Reject "Safe Spaces," Demagoguery in Politics

Gov. Chris Christie to require lead testing in New Jersey public schools

Posted: 02 May 2016 01:48 PM PDT

Gov. Chris Christie says he will require all of the state's public schools to test for lead in water starting next school year.

Over 90 Detroit Schools Close as Teachers Hold 'Sick Out' in Fight for Paychecks

Posted: 02 May 2016 01:00 PM PDT

Detroit Public School teachers are fighting for their paychecks by initiating a "sick out" today that has closed 94 of 97 schools, impacting 45,628 students. "We have teachers who are on 26 pay periods," Bailey explained. "When we figured out what was going on and looked at the payments of those teachers, technically Thursday of last week is the last day that they're actually being paid," Bailey said.

Detroit teachers to consider next move after mass sick-out

Posted: 02 May 2016 12:53 PM PDT

DETROIT (AP) — Teachers in Detroit are considering their next move after they effectively shut down the financially strapped school district on Monday, giving nearly 45,000 schoolchildren an unscheduled day off. The educators stopped short of calling it a strike, instead saying they called a massive sick-out in response to an announcement that the district wouldn't be able to pay teachers who deferred part of their salaries to get checks during the summer months.

Black Students Take on More Debt than Asian, White Low-Income Students

Posted: 02 May 2016 12:53 PM PDT

The average cost of tuition and fees for the 2015-2016 school years was $32,405 at private colleges, $9,410 for state residents in public universities and colleges and $23,893 for out-of-state students attending public universities, according to College Board. While families across the socio-economic spectrum have been forced to borrow more and more in recent years to keep up with the mounting costs of attending public, private and for-profit colleges and universities, "minorities in the course of financing a college degree can differ substantially from those faced by whites of similar economic and educational standing," according to Richard V. Reeves, a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution. Reeves wrote that the so-called "race gap" in higher education loans and debt turned out to be much wider than previously assumed, in light of new research published last week by Children and Youth Services Review.

Sick-out by teachers shuts nearly all Detroit public schools

Posted: 02 May 2016 12:02 PM PDT

DETROIT (AP) — Nearly all of Detroit's public schools were closed Monday and more than 45,000 students missed classes after about half the district's teachers called out sick to protest the possibility that some of them won't get paid over the summer if the struggling district runs out of cash.

The Latest: Hundreds of Detroit teachers picket over pay

Posted: 02 May 2016 09:21 AM PDT

FLINT, Mich. (AP) — The Latest on the sick-out by teachers that's closed dozens of Detroit schools on Monday (all times local):

Why are 100 Detroit schools closed today?

Posted: 02 May 2016 08:34 AM PDT

Nearly 100 Detroit schools are closed today because of "sick-outs" after teachers received news that the city would not be able to pay them over the summer. Just last month, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signed a bill that granted the Detroit Public Schools $48.7 million to pay teacher salaries through the summer.

Watch robots go medieval on one another at the FIRST competition

Posted: 02 May 2016 08:28 AM PDT

The world's largest robotics competition took place last week, and as one might expect, when 20,000 robot-crazy high school students and a ton of automatons get together, it made for a pretty rowdy show. The 25th annual FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Championship was held in St. Louis, and on Saturday night, the entire show culminated in a battle to the death (sort of) among four teams in front of a crowd of over 40,000 spectators. The competition was fierce, with the finalists having been whittled down from 900 teams who hailed from around the world. Each team designed a robot, weighing up to 120 pounds, that was capable of carrying out a series of tasks, including throwing balls and discs through goals, hanging on bars, and balancing on beams. But the real fun came in the championship round, involving four teams from Hermosa Beach, California; Tremont, Illinois; Cleveland, Ohio; and Glen Allen, Virginia. In the FIRST Stronghold, robot alliances were charged with destroying one another's forts in an epic combination of brute strength and impressive engineering. Each alliance was comprised of three robots, which worked together to "breach their opponents' fortifications, weaken their tower, and capture the opposing tower." It was all high tech meets medieval battle tactics, as "robots scored points by breaching opponents' defenses and tossing boulders through goals in the opposing tower. During the final 20 seconds of the match, robots were allowed to surround and scale the opposing tower to capture it." Related : Is Puma's new robot runner faster than Usain Bolt? "We believe that if you can show kids that the tools of mathematics and engineering empower them to do some really cool, really fun things, they'll get passionate about it," said FIRST Founder Dean Kamen. "Research shows we're significantly more creative when we're 5 years old than we are when we're 25, but you can keep your creativity alive with playful learning experiences like those you get through FIRST," added Colin Gillespie, president of Lego education North America. "You're rekindling that awesome creativity and can see the world in ways [we] can only hope to imagine."

Detroit public schools shut with teachers in 'sickout' protest over pay

Posted: 02 May 2016 05:27 AM PDT

The shutdown due to "teacher sickouts" was announced on the website for Michigan's largest public school system with 45,786 students, which has been under state control since 2009. Detroit Federation of Teachers Interim President Ivy Bailey said in a statement on Sunday that the district was "effectively locking our members out of the classrooms" by failing to guarantee that teachers will be paid once the fiscal year wraps up on June 30. The Michigan legislature approved $48.7 million in supplemental funding but that will allow the district to meet payroll only through the end of June, said Steven Rhodes, a former federal bankruptcy judge who is the schools' emergency manager.

The Sickout in Detroit

Posted: 02 May 2016 05:01 AM PDT

The overwhelming majority of Detroit Public Schools will be closed Monday after the teachers union in the city called for a sickout over concerns about the finances of Michigan's largest school district.

Sick-out by Detroit teachers prompts 43 school closures

Posted: 01 May 2016 08:59 PM PDT

DETROIT (AP) — More than 40 Detroit Public Schools will be closed Monday, the district said, after the teachers union urged members to call in sick in a protest over funding issues.

Latest: Sick-out prompts 43 Detroit school closures

Posted: 01 May 2016 08:56 PM PDT

DETROIT (AP) — The Latest on Detroit Public Schools closures (all times local):

Michael Bloomberg Tells College Graduates to Reject "Safe Spaces," Demagoguery in Politics

Posted: 30 Apr 2016 09:00 PM PDT

During his commencement address at the University of Michigan, the billionaire criticized "microaggression" and the current election conversation.