Education : Buzz

University of Maryland College Park offers students a good bang for their buck according to Kiplinger's latest list of the 100 Best Values in Public Colleges. The flagship of Maryland's university system climbed three spots up the list, taking the no. 5 ranking in 2011. Joining College Park in the ranking are St. Mary's College of Maryland, Salisbury University, Towson University, and the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

Here's an excerpt:

"Virtually all of the schools we list raised their price in 2010-11, but the University of Maryland, which maintained a tuition freeze for four straight years, kept this year's total cost increase to less than $600. The first-class flagship continues its march up our rankings, moving from number eight last year to number five in 2010-11."

Read the article.

It's no secret that Towson University offers students a quality education. What people may not know is that the liberal arts university is one of only a handful of higher education institutions in the country that consistently graduate as many white students as black students.

Here's an excerpt:

"In 10 years, according to school data, Towson has raised black graduation rates by 30 points and closed a 14-point gap between blacks and whites. University leaders credit a few simple strategies: admitting students with good grades from strong public high schools, then tracking each student's progress with a network of mentors, counselors and welcome-to-college classes.

"Regardless of your background, there's people here for you who understand what you're going through," said Kenan Herbert, 23, an African American Towson senior from Brooklyn, N.Y."

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The New York Times featured Dr. Andres Alonso and his "mission" to fix the city's ailing school system.

Here's an excerpt:

"It's a test case for what's possible," Dr. Alonso said. "There were incredible opportunities because the troubles were so big."

The system had churned through six superintendents in six years, so Dr. Alonso's priority was to persuade people that things would be different this time. For his changes to work, he needed a lot of support, but that took some convincing.

"The community felt alienated," said Bishop Douglas I. Miles, a pastor at Koinonia Baptist Church and a major sponsor of youth programs in the city. "There was a sense that we weren't wanted except to do bake sales."

Read the entire article.

Marietta English, head of the Baltimore City Teacher's Union, in a letter to the New York Times, reminds the paper of record and its readers that repairing a school system requires the input and dedication of teachers in the classroom.

Here's an excerpt:

"A Mission to Transform a City's Beaten Schools" (news article, Dec. 2) accurately portrays a school system that has made tremendous strides for its students and community. Test scores were already rising upon Dr. Andres Alonso's arrival in Baltimore in 2007, but he should be commended for his vision and accomplishments in transforming Baltimore's schools.

But smart, successful reform in Baltimore or anywhere else doesn't happen without the input and participation of the system's teachers and their union. Dr. Alonso partnered with the community and the Baltimore Teachers Union to achieve sweeping, even groundbreaking changes."

Read the entire response.

With a $50,000 grant from Constellation Energy, two local Catholic schools are planning to explore the possibilities of wind power.

Here's an excerpt:

"Students at Ellicott City's Our Lady of Perpetual Help School will soon be putting a lot more energy into their studies � literally.

The 215-student school in Howard County, in partnership with the Albright Foundation, University of Maryland Baltimore County and Federal Hill Preparatory School in Baltimore City, has been awarded a $50,000 grant from Constellation Energy to study the school's use of wind as an energy resource.

OLPH and Federal Hill Prep students will participate in an applied science project to evaluate whether a wind turbine can produce enough energy to meet the power needs of the two schools. "

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Freeman Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland Baltimore County, has worked tirelessly to boost the university's reputation as an educational powerhouse in mathematics and science. He's taken his work further to help students from around the nation, as highlighted in a recent New York Times op-ed.

Here's an excerpt:

"Right now only about 6 percent of young college graduates in this country have degrees in science or engineering, as opposed to about 10 percent in many developed nations. The numbers are far worse for minorities: only 2.7 percent of young African-American college graduates and 2.2 percent of Latinos.

This is the problem that keeps Freeman Hrabowski awake at night. Mr. Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, led the committee that produced "Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation," an eye-opening study issued by the National Academies, the country's leading science advisory group."

Read the entire op-ed.

Baltimore City Public Schools and the Baltimore City Department of Social Services have launched a new program in an effort to give foster children a modicum of stability.

Here's an excerpt:

"As children around Baltimore settle into the routine of the school year, the distinct minority who enter foster care will struggle to find stability. Often, as temporary placements shift and these youngsters are jostled from placement to placement, the instability that permeates their life also seeps into their school experience.

But a novel collaboration between the Baltimore City Department of Social Services (BCDSS) and Baltimore City Public Schools (BCPS) holds the promise of offering something to Baltimore foster children that is in wide variance across this country: the chance at educational stability."

Read the entire article.

Time and again, teachers' unions have been cast as the villain in the battle to improve public education in the U.S. The new contract awaiting approval from members of the Baltimore Teacher's Union, helps undercut that stereotype and puts the city in the lead as an innovator of public education.

Here's an excerpt:

"Still, the narrative that education reformers and teachers unions are eternal and implacable enemies is a hardy one, and one that Washingtonians in particular may well believe after four years of pitched battle between Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and the D.C. teachers union. The intensity of the local battle might blind them to the experience of cities where the school district and the union have jointly embraced a reform agenda, even including a version of merit pay. And yet, such an agreement -- an impossibility, if we are to believe the conventional narrative -- was reached just two weeks ago in the faraway city of Baltimore."

Read the entire op-ed here.

Newsweek/Kaplan has released their annual lists of the nation's top ranked schools. Several universities in the Baltimore area were cited in the "25 Best" categories. The US Naval Academy took the No. 9 spot in the "25 Most Desirable Schools" category. Johns Hopkins University came in at No. 18 in the "25 Most Desirable Urban Schools."

Here's an excerpt:

"At the United States Naval Academy, the government foots the tuition bill. That could be part of the reason why the public school holds the No. 9 spot on Newsweek's list of most desirable colleges and the No. 3 spot on its roundup of most desirable suburban schools. "Annapolis is said to be the sailing capital of the world," writes one student on CollegeProwler.com. "During the summer it lives up to its billing."

Read the entire article here.
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Forget the corny camp songs, At Opera Summer Camp gives Baltimore tweens a broader playbook taken from opera's masters.

Here's an excerpt:

"On a bright summer morning in Baltimore, camp is in full swing. A few dozen youngsters run through their daily exercises � vocal exercises, that is. Forget the bug spray and sleeping bags. At Opera Camp, the kids need only bring talent and a desire to sing.

Five days a week, from 9 a.m. until 3:30 p.m., camp is held inside a sprawling concert hall. The four-week session aims to introduce the texting generation to opera. Students receive instruction in music, acting, dance, lighting, set design, and makeup and wigs. Thanks to private donors, everything from field trips to lunch is free."

Listen to the entire report here.

Baltimore County Schools students will soon have their game faces on -- their game developers' face, that is. Baltimore County Schools says it will add the new curriculum using serious games.

Here's an excerpt:

"Along with Learning Port strategies, the public school district has developed a program called L.i.V.E., or Learning in a Virtual Environment, which includes a "virtual high school" and a game development contest that will encourage students to create games based around topics related to science, technology, engineering, and math.

Baltimore, Maryland-area schools hope that the program will both generate interest in the sciences and prepare students for technical careers later in their lives."

Read the entire article here.

For the second year, ForbesWoman has released its list of the 50 best cities for working moms. Baltimore rounded out the Top Five cities, behind Minneapolis-St. Paul, Washington, D.C., Boston, Mass., and Pittsburgh, Pa.

Here's an excerpt:

"To calculate our list we began with the 50 largest metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in the U.S. while working under the notion that "best" means different things to different women. Safety, of course, is important, and great schools and healthcare also all play a part--but when it comes to quality of life for high-achieving women, there are other components to consider."

Read the entire article here.

Baltimore's public schools aren't the only schools teaching the city's young people about healthier eating. Charter schools like Baltimore Stadium School are also helping to spread the word.

Here's an excerpt:

"Although Michelle Obama and her Let's Move Campaign call for major top-down food policy reform, Dixon takes a different approach. While reforming food policy is of course a long-term goal, Food Is Elementary has a more immediate priority: educating kids about healthy eating by working within existing constraints and regulations. Major policy changes face a tremendous number of barriers: the federal reimbursement rate for the school lunch program, for example, has not increased since 1973. In contrast, Food Is Elementary's bottom-up strategy could lay the necessary groundwork for changes to take place and serve as a model for other nutrition programs with similar goals."

Read the entire article here.

Could you put down or iPhone or Blackbery? Could you turn off your laptop, netbook, desktop, TV, Wii, PS3 or Xbox? And then go 24 hours before you picked them up or hit the power button? A new study conducted by College Park researchers found that students at the university are addicted to their media devices.

Here's an excerpt:

"What is is like to go without media? What if you had to give up your cell phone, iPod, television, car radio, magazines, newspapers and computer (i.e. no texting, no Facebook or IM-ing)?

Could you do it? Is it even possible?

Well, not really, if you are an American college student today.

According to a new ICMPA study, most college students are not just unwilling, but functionally unable to be without their media links to the world.

"I clearly am addicted and the dependency is sickening," said one student in the study. "I feel like most people these days are in a similar situation, for between having a Blackberry, a laptop, a television, and an iPod, people have become unable to shed their media skin."

This new study conducted by the International Center for Media & the Public Agenda (ICMPA) asked 200 students at the University of Maryland, College Park to abstain from using all media for 24 hours. After their 24 hours of abstinence, the students were then asked to blog on private class websites about their experiences: to report their successes and admit to any failures. The 200 students wrote over 110,000 words: in aggregate, about the same number of words as a 400-page novel."

Read the blog post here.

Apple has scored yet another win the release April 3 of the iPad. The revolutionary media device has led to a crush of picture book apps for kids. But what about free apps for kids books? The University of Maryland offers free iPad apps from its International Children's Digital Library website.

Here's an excerpt:

"As with the iPhone and iPod Touch, paid iPad apps aren't the only game in town-there's free material for kid-lit lovers, too. The app for the eight-year-old International Children's Digital Library, housed at the University of Maryland and largely funded by the National Science Foundation, lets iPad users read (but not download) more than 4,000 books from around the world. More than half are either written in English or have been translated into English...

The University of Maryland creators took their existing Web site and adapted it for the iPad. When kids rotate their device vertically to "portrait" mode, they see one page of a book. When they turn it horizontally to "landscape" mode, they see two pages. "We encourage kids to read how they're comfortable," said Ben Bederson, associate professor of computer science at the University of Maryland. "iPad is really the first time the International Children's Digital Library can be used with children in their parents' laps." As a result of the iPad's portability and convenience, he said, he projects that kids will spend more time with stories."

Read the entire article here.