Archive for the ‘Education Sport Notes’ Category
Education Expected to Take Turn in State of the Union Spotlight
January 19th, 2012
Education is one of four areas President Obama will focus on during his State of the Union address tonight night, according to this Associated Press story. The big question is: What will he say?
In giving this election-year State of the Union speech, Obama may brag about some of the steps his administration has taken on education, including creating the Race to the Top education redesign competition, and offering states wiggle room under key parts of the No Child Left Behind Act if they agree to take-on the administration’s reform priorities.
And he could talk about steps the administration has taken to help boost college affordability, including getting rid of the federally subsidized student lending program. The administration used the savings to boost aid for students. But the Pell Grant program, which offers grants to low-income students to attend college, remains under major financial pressure. Are there new initiatives Obama can talk about in this area, or will he just recap what has happened so far?
Community colleges and higher-education are likely to be a part of the speech, White House aides said. And teacher-quality may also be highlighted.
Last year, President Obama asked Congress to pass a bipartisan reauthorization of the law. But it never happened, and now the administration is moving ahead with a waiver package that Obama’s own secretary of education thinks is stronger than any of the legislation under consideration. So, if I were a betting woman, I’d guess there won’t be much talk about NCLB this time.
Early pushback: Republicans in Congress are already pointing to what they see as flaws in some of the Obama administration’s edu-accomplishments. For instance, they note that a number of states are having trouble implementing Race to the Top.
And House Republicans say waivers will simply create confusion for states, since there could potentially be a number of different plans approved. They are also questioning the secretary’s authority to issue waivers. And they worry that the president’s plan for student loans could mean that taxpayers will end up holding the bag.
Tags: Union, Union Spotlight
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Cosby to headline school fundraiser
January 17th, 2012
Comedian and education activist Bill Cosby is visiting Connecticut to help a Hartford magnet school as it tries to raise $100,000 for college scholarships for its students.
Capital Preparatory Magnet School says it had raised $90,000 by mid-week and hopes to raise significantly more through Friday’s event, in which Cosby will give the keynote talk.
The Hartford Courant reports the $50-per-ticket fundraiser has sold out.
It will also include Soledad O’Brien of CNN, former NBA star Jalen Rose, education reformer Geoffrey Canada and NFL Hall of Famer Franco Harris.
Capital Prep prides itself on a 100 percent acceptance rate for graduating seniors to get into four-year colleges. But its founder and principal says that spiraling tuition costs make it difficult for many families to afford higher education without scholarships.
Tags: School, School Fundraiser
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Universities raise £50m in library fines
January 5th, 2012
Top of the pile was Leeds University, which has raised more than £1.8 million in the last six years.
In second place was Manchester University, which collected almost £1.3 million and in third was the University of Wolverhampton with £1.25 million.
At the bottom of the table was Imperial College London, which collected just £26,703 in fines.
With fines as little as 10p for each day a book is overdue, it shows that students are returning thousands of books late each year.
However, many are never returned at all as more than 300,000 books remain unaccounted for from universities across the country.
Leading the way at number one was Bucks New University with 30,540, closely followed by Oxford University with 20,923 and the University of Kent with 19,613.
In order to avoid paying the full price to their university for a new copy, some students are turning to the internet and buying replacements from Amazon.
The figures were revealed in Freedom of Information requests to all of Britain’s universities by the Press Association.
They to supply details of the amount of fines issued, the total received and the number of books unaccounted for from its libraries for the six academic years from 2004/05.
In total 101 universities responded to the request but many were unable to provide details of the amounts they fined students for returning books late.
Penalties at the universities vary.
Most students are fined 10p for every day a book is overdue, while at Edinburgh Napier University daily fines can be as much as £1 per day.
“The charge on the invoice reflects the amount it would cost us to replace the item using our normal suppliers,” the university revealed.
“Sometimes a student who has genuinely lost an item will buy it through Amazon at a reduced price and give us the book – we are very happy to accept that.
“At the end of the day our priority is to ensure that materials we have in stock for student use are available so when an item is not returned we start the invoice process with the aim of replacing the item.”
For persistent offending, students can have their library account suspended or lose access to their university’s IT system.
At Imperial College London an outstanding fine of £4 will see library privileges barred until the books are returned.
Aston University admitted that some students get around a library suspension by getting their friends to borrow books on their behalf.
“Beyond the limit of 15, borrowing is stopped until the fine is paid – although we know that in some cases students simply ask their friends to borrow for them to avoid paying the fines,” the university’s reply to the FOI request reveals.
The odd one out was the University of Westminster, which does not fine students at all for returning library books late.
Instead of a financial penalty, students are banned from using the library for the length of time that corresponds with how late their books are.
Some may even be barred from graduating if they owe their university money.
As little as a £5 debt at Exeter University will prevent graduation, as will £20 at Lancaster University or £25 at the University of Glasgow.
Other universities said they would instruct debt collection agencies if the library debts were part of other larger debts owed, such as fees and accommodation.
A Leeds University spokesman said: “The sole purpose of library fines is to prevent individuals from keeping books for unreasonably long periods and so disadvantage others who need to use them.
“We set the rates to make them a deterrent only, and not an opportunity to make money from our customers.
“The funds which are raised this way are therefore reinvested in books and services to support our customers.”
Tags: Raise, Universities Raise
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7 Obsessions Guaranteed to Improve your Life
December 29th, 2011
An obsession is consuming. It often pushes other activities into the background. It compels and fills your thoughts and impassions your soul with desire. It becomes the beat of your heart and the pulse of your being. It drives you ever forward toward its object.
And while obsessive behavior can destroy and corrupt happiness, robbing it of a sense of freedom and will and sometimes even land you in prison, certain kinds of controlled obsessions can enhance the quality of your life. I recommend the following …
Are you drawn to kindness like a child to candy? Do you regularly think about how you can bless the lives of others? Do you wish you could do more?
An obsession with kindness can be seen in those who are constantly reaching out to do good. They are seen in soup kitchens, ladling soup, in food banks, boxing food and cleaning up after natural disasters.
Such people’s hearts are filled with love and compassion and charity. They care about others, even those they don’t know and have never met.
And it’s an obsession that will draw the best from you as you reach out in service to others. It is guaranteed to add meaning to life and purpose to living.
No matter what you do, be the best you can be at what you’re doing within the time frame you have for doing it. If you have only 10 minutes to prepare for a presentation, for instance, then be the most focused and diligent preparer for each and every one of those 600 seconds.
Make excellence your motto and your theme song. Those obsessed with excellence can usually be found congregating at the top of their classes, at the top of corporate ladders and on the top of winner’s platforms.
They show up to practices first and are the last ones to leave. They are self-motivated and yearn to improve and add value and innovate. They also inspire others to excellence by pursuing it and exemplifying it in themselves.
They go the extra mile and do those things others aren’t willing to do. Often, it’s the small things that put them at the top. They work on their free throw longer than others. They make the phone calls no one wants to make. They follow through and plan and pay attention to the details.
You only have one mortal life. It can be filled with frustration and anger, bitterness, hatred, suspicion and resentment. Or we can become obsessed with developing those characteristics happy people possess.
People obsessed with their own happiness, when pursued correctly, find themselves very unfocussed on themselves in the long run. They quickly learn that the happiest people are focused on others. They develop traits like patience, compassion and gratitude. They smile freely and laugh often.
They are obsessed with seeing the good in the bad and believing that, with a little work, things will work out in the long run even if they aren’t working out yet today.
What a wonderful obsession to have! Such people possessed with this obsession habitually see beauty and opportunity and decency and humor even in life’s most trying moments. Not only are they obsessed with expressions of gratitude, they’re obsessed with being grateful, with feeling it deep inside.
They have an incurable passion for seeing the good and interpreting life in terms of its blessings even when others only see its pain.
Those plagued by this obsession hunger and thirst for knowledge and intellectual growth. But most of all, they seek to understand the wise application of that knowledge.
Knowing is one thing. Knowing how and why and if, is another.
If being smart is your capacity to learn and knowledge is what you’ve learned, then wisdom is knowing when and where and why that knowledge should be applied in any particular way … and when it shouldn’t be.
That understanding is what is obsessed over. And so those obsessed with wisdom spend lots of time learning and thinking. They study a broad range of knowledge.
But they spend a particularly large amount of their study time with wisdom literature, reading deeply from philosophical and religious and spiritual texts.
Their libraries display books like Aristotle’s Ethics, Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations, Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching, the Bible and Buddha’s Dhammapada, among others.
A wit and intellect, a great sense of humor, popularity, a great personality are not enough for those obsessed with character.
They believe character, their personal commitment to a set of moral standards, is more important than gold or power or prestige. They’re protective of it and don’t place themselves in circumstances where they may be tempted to act against it.
They are not at the mercy of their emotions. They don’t excuse bad behavior by citing bad feelings.
Such obsessives are very comfortable talking about morals and ethics and values and standards. They talk freely of courage and love, of humility, honesty and decency.
They work on being compassionate and kind. Their honor and integrity cannot be bought and are never compromised. Those so obsessed therefore tend to be deeply respected, trusted and admired. They see moral flaws of pride and selfishness as things to be overcome. Their word is their bond.
They stand for something which strengthens their sense of purpose. The beauty of those obsessed with character is that they seldom ever wince when they look deeply into a mirror, peering into the depths of their own souls. As such, they sleep peacefully, undisturbed by the pangs of conscience or guilt or shame.
Personal growth obsessives are uncomfortable with plateaus and stagnation. They cringe at statements like, “That’s just the way I am” or “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”
They challenge themselves and look for opportunities to learn and overcome, to stretch and become something better than they were before.
They grow spiritually, mentally, emotionally, professionally, and in their relationships. They work on their character and review their days and weeks and months and years to see how they can improve next time around.
They go to seminars and check out personal growth tapes from the public library. They read and work out and eat well and push themselves outside their comfort zones with regularity.
They welcome challenge because of the growth they experience from it. And because they are so dedicated to growth in general, they never become too lopsided, dedicated to one area of growth to the utter neglect of others.
“I know quite certainly that I myself have no special talent; curiosity, obsession and dogged endurance … have brought me to my ideas.” ~ Albert Einstein
Obsessions are tricky things. While those obsessed with whatever it is that drives them and defines them are those who tend to cluster at the top of any industry (sports, entertainment, business, whatever), those obsessed with what they do often struggle in other areas of their very successful lives.
Divorce, estranged children, character flaws made huge by media attention and health problems are commonplace among some of the people who have obsessed their way into the public spotlight.
There are healthy forms of obsession – a passionate form of dedication and drive – that leads to great things if you use that passion to move you steadily toward your goals instead of being controlled by those inordinate levels and kinds of obsessive qualities.
But an obsession with life, with living it well, fully, immersed in the joys of it, filled to capacity with the passion of living it, engulfed in the flow and rising tide of deep abiding happiness is an obsession that we would all do well to acquire.
What are your healthy obsessions? Or what targeted obsessions do you plan on developing for 2012? Please share in the comments below.
And feel free to obsessively Share and Tweet this post if it resonated with you (or you think it may with others).
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Tags: bad habits, good habits, healthy, how to, obsession, pickthebrain, resolutions, self improvement
Tags: Improve, Improve Life
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GHSA standing pat for now, GISA not encouraging defections
December 16th, 2011
By S. Thomas Coleman
For the AJC
The Georgia High Schools Association has no formal plans at the moment to address the possible defection of a number of mostly south Georgia schools, currently in Class A, according to executive director Ralph Swearngin.
“We plan to have our reclassification appeals hearings on Monday, here at the office [in Thomaston], then we will have our executive committee meeting Jan. 10 at the Macon Centreplex,” Swearngin said late Wednesday afternoon, one day after 85 representatives from 33 schools met in Wilcox County to discuss leaving the Georgia High Schools Association. The meeting ended with an eight-member advisory committee being tasked with leading the effort to form another member organization.
Swearngin said he was not aware of anything in the works at present by the GHSA that would address what went on at the meeting. However, he said, “I’m sure the people on our executive committee are hearing from their people back home.”
Swearngin noted that the GHSA spent nearly a year discussing the issues being raised by the dissident schools and others. Most of the issues involve what the schools contend is an unfair competitive advantage private schools have over public schools. More than 10 months of debating and negotiating produced a plan that would have separated Class A public and private schools in every sport except for basketball and football, beginning next school year. However the measure was narrowly defeated in a vote by the GHSA executive committee.
“We never could get one idea that people could agree on practically,” Swearngin said. “I think there are differing opinions across the board. Some people think that something needs to be done to change the way things are, but others say they don’t know if anything needs to be changed.”
Citing the proposal that was defeated by the GHSA executive committee, Swearngin said, “Some people said ‘why don’t the other classes get the opportunity to have separate [public and private] champions’.
“When it comes to the issue of fairness,” Swearngin added, “I think some people are asking the GHSA to fix problems that we don’t control – the economy, population migration, the wealth of one area over another.”
Also on Wednesday afternoon, Tommy Whittle, vice president for interscholastics for the Georgia Independent Schools Association, who attended the meeting in Wilcox County with GISA executive director Jeff Jackson, said his organization is not trying to undercut the GHSA in any way. The 33 schools approached GISA – a membership association of 134 schools, roughly half of which compete in football – about possibly joining the organization but decided to ask GISA for advice on starting their own membership association instead.
“In fact, we advised them to stay in the GHSA. It is a well-run organization,” said Whittle, a 1969 graduate of Wilcox County. “But they said they were past that point and asked for our assistance.
“We didn’t go to the meeting to recruit anyone or harm any other organizations,” Whittle said. “We were there because we were asked to be and to see if there would be any consideration [by the proposed new association] given to crossover play.”
That would indeed be the case, according to Wilcox County principal Chad Davis, a member of the eight-man advisory committee that is drafting the policies, procedures and bylaws for the proposed new association. If it does form, the schools in the new association would compete against GISA schools in a few “non-league” or “non-region” games at the beginning of the season.
GISA schools have competed in basketball against public schools in South Carolina and Florida, Whittle said. This fall, Mount De Sales, a traditional GISA power in Macon, competed in football against Bay High in Panama City, which went 3-7 this season in Florida’s second largest classification (5A). Mount De Sales won 24-7.
Whittle said GISA has “tried for years” to get GHSA to allow competition between schools in the two associations. Their overtures have been denied.
“Dr. Swearngin is a good man and the GHSA is a good organization,” Whittle said, “but they said it would be against their charter.”
Whittle added that the effort to start another membership organization has a long way to go.
“It’s very premature to think that this will happen,” Whittle said. “You’re looking at forming rules and regulations, and no action can be taken until the [school] boards meet. This could all end up being much ado about nothing.”
More on the “Gang of 33”
In case you missed the list in Wednesday’s paper, here are the 33 schools that sent representatives to the meeting in Wilcox County. Note that five teams are moving up to Class AA next year (if they remain in the GHSA) after reclassification. Also, Tift County, in AAAAA currently but moving to AAAAAA next year, was represented at the meeting as well.
Atkinson County (AA)
Baconton Charter
Calhoun County
Central-Talbotton
Charlton County
Chattahoochee County (AA)
Claxton
Clinch County
Dooly County
Echols County
Glascock County
Gordon Lee
Hancock Central
Irwin County
Jenkins County
Johnson County
Lanier County
Miller County
Montgomery County
Randolph-Clay
Schley County
Seminole County
Social Circle (AA)
Stewart County
Taylor County (AA)
Terrell County
Tift County (AAAAAA)
Twiggs County
Warren County
Washington-Wilkes (AA)
Wheeler County
Wilkinson County
Wilcox County
Also, here are the eight advisory committee members who are drafting the rules, regulations and bylaws for the proposed new membership association. They plan to meet Dec. 21 in Macon.
Cecil Barber, Clinch County baseball coach
Chad Davis, Wilcox County principal
Greg Ellis, Gordon Lee associate athletic director
William Huff, Terrell County football coach
Alan Ingram, Seminole County football coach
Ray Jordan, Superintendent Turner County Schools
Kaveous Preston, Warren County principal
Robbie Robinson, Washington-Wilkes football coach
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