An Indiana elementary school physical education teacher is putting her background in graphic design to use to support public education. Andrea Bornino has designed a T-shirt in support of public educators, many of whom, Bornino said, feel demonized by an increasingly divisive and politicized education climate.

Depicting a heart symbol outlining the silhouette of a student's raised hand, the shirts read in part, "Raise your hand if you are proud to be a public educator." To learn more about the T-shirts and Bornino, read the full article by Mikel Livingston at The Journal and Courier online.

"Nearly a year after the first Race to the Top grants were awarded, the dozen winners in the federal competition for school reform aid are slowly starting to spend their money, ramp up the capacity within their own state education departments, and, in some cases, ratchet down expectations from plans that may have promised too much, too fast," writes Michele McNeil in Education Week.

Meeting fast-approaching deadlines, which states themselves set, is part of the challenge facing personnel- and budget-strapped state agencies. To learn more, read the full article.

 

 

 

 

 

Taliban “supreme leader” Mullah Mohammad Omar has issued a decree instructing insurgents not to attack schools and intimidate schoolchildren, according to the Afghan Ministry of Education. "In his message to a Taliban military council in Khost Province [southeastern Afghanistan], Mullah Omar said attacks on schools and students are the work of the enemies of Afghanistan and Islam,” Ministry spokesman Sefatullah Sapai told IRIN, adding that the Ministry was not in direct contact with the insurgents. To learn more, read the full article in the Asia section of IRIN News.

President Barack Obama believes that an excessive focus on tests within schools could actually make students lose interest in education and teach them less about the things that are important.

In a recent town hall meeting with students and parents hosted by the Univision Spanish-language television network at Bell Multicultural High School in Washington, DC, Obama was vocal about his belief that fewer standardized tests and less rigid measures of performance beyond students' test scores could be more effective in raising the bar in the country's education. Read the full article at International Business Times.

 

 

 

 

States around the country are looking to trim their budgets, and public school teachers are feeling unfairly attacked. At the same time, the United States continues to fall behind other countries in student performance rankings.

An analysis of the most recent assessment of 74 education systems around the world offers some interesting points about how teaching is viewed in top-performing countries. The report, "What the U.S. Can Learn From the World's Most Successful Education Reform Efforts," found that in high-scoring countries like Finland, Japan, The Netherlands, Canada and South Korea, teachers have higher status and are typically paid better relative to other workers. It also noted, "countries that have succeeded in making teaching an attractive profession have often done so not just through pay, but by raising the status of teaching."

How can we raise the status of teachers in the United States? Read nine opinions on the issue in Room for Debate in The New York Times online.