The Northern Echo – Barry Nelson

“Modern languages have taken a bit of a battering in our schools lately but Pat Howarth, principal of Hummersknott Academy in Darlington argues that acquiring a second language is a great asset in life and can help young people find a good job.”(more)

ABC News – Elisabeth Leamy

“It’s graduation season. Did your teenager have to take a financial literacy course to don that cap and gown? Probably not. According to the Council for Economic Education, as of 2011, 22 states required high school students to take an economics class –the “supply and demand” type, not the ‘how to balance your checkbook type.’”(more)

Education Week – Sarah D. Sparks

“Preschools and kindergartens long have taught children “task skills,” such as cutting paper and coloring inside the lines. But new research suggests the spatial and fine-motor skills learned in kindergarten and preschool not only prepare students to write their mathematics homework neatly, but also prime them to learn math and abstract reasoning.”(more)

Education Week – Lisa Hansel

“The Common Core State Standards contain laudable goals for what students ought to be able to do. Attaining those goals, especially in English/language arts and literacy, depends on how schools interpret the standards’ call for a content-rich curriculum:”(more)

Education News – Julia Lawrence

“A number of states including Florida are contemplating changes that would hold institutions training and certifying new teachers more accountable for the quality and performance of their graduates, NPR’s State Impact blog reports.”(more)

Oregon Live – Special to The Oregonian

“The program partners with schools with high concentrations of students from low-income homes. It uses what it calls coaches, or role models, to work fulltime within each school, helping children learn to play together and reduce conflict.”(more)

The Sydney Morning Herald – Nicola Yelland

” I recently spent time with a young teacher named Colin and his year 4/5 class and what I saw reveals the ways in which the current debate over teacher quality is erroneous and masks the complexities in this fundamental issue.”(more)

Education News- Julia Lawrence

“According to a survey of parents around the world, thanks to the internet, kids are being exposed to adult content at an ever earlier age.”(more)

All Africa- Souleymane Maâzou

“A decade ago, less than a third of school-aged girls in Niger were in class. Today, though significant cultural and religious opposition remains, nearly two-thirds of girls are enrolled in school.”(more)

The Sentinel Source – Nicole S. Colson

“An analysis of Keene School District students from 2006 to 2009 by Antioch University New England found about 40 percent of children ages 5 to 14 were overweight or obese. The most recent data reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows 17 percent of adolescents and children in the U.S. are obese, a percentage that has tripled since 1980.”(more)