Or is it just that I hear more about American news stories? Here's a 40 year old teacher marrying a 16-year-old student in North Carolina.
Some minority students were not given diplomas because people cheered during the graduation ceremony. One of the students brings up an excellent point about not being able control everyone. For example, I don't like Fred so i get a few people to cheer when his name is called and Fred can't get his diploma.
That bothers me, but what bothers me even more are claims that when white students were cheered there was no penalty. 4 black students and 1 hispanic were punished in this school district near Chicago.
A school in Indianapolis actually had police remove parents who cheered for their kids during graduation. It seems a bit crazy to me.
I thought this number, 2/3 of graduates have student loan debt, was pretty shocking. The average is about $19,000 in debt.
The article I linked to recommends consolidating federally backed loans as soon as possible and long before July 1.
For consolidating other loans, they give several useful web sites and remind people that they can consolidate with any lender. They recommend looking beyond a school's list or preferred lenders to all the controversy (lenders paying schools to get on the preferred list).
If you need help paying off student loans, whether it is through a dedicated student loans service or some sort of other debt consolidation for non-homeowners, make sure that you use the Internet as a resource before deciding how to consolidate student loans debts uninformed.
Schools in the US are finding that giving kids laptops to fool around with doesn't make them smarter - it just makes it easier to find porn and practice hacking:
"After seven years, there was literally no evidence it had any impact on student achievement — none," said Mark Lawson, the school board president here in Liverpool, one of the first districts in New York State to experiment with putting technology directly into students’ hands. “The teachers were telling us when there’s a one-to-one relationship between the student and the laptop, the box gets in the way. It’s a distraction to the educational process."
People are amazed at how expensive college is in America. For example a school I've never heard of, Collins College in Tempe, Arizona is $55,550/year according to scholarship.com.
It seems like you need a scholarship or a student loan just to go to college in the US. In this article on The Game of Life, players choose whether or not to go to college. University doesn't always mean better paying work, but it does mean more job choices.
In Ohio, they realize that some people can't afford a higher education so they are working on a tuition freeze. The schools aren't sure they can make the plan work since tuition covers over half of their operating budget. Take the example of Miami (Ohio):
Miami's already facing a shortfall of between $6 million and $7 million next year, and Hodge said Miami is on the bottom of the beneficiaries of the compact: Less than 18 percent of funding for the Oxford campus comes from the state, university figures show; nearly 70 percent comes from tuition and fees.American culture values a higher education, but public funds don't seem to reflect that culture. Public money just doesn't end up in education like it used to so tuition becomes more and more vital to universities (and that means expensive).It wasn't always this way.
Two decades ago, state support accounted for nearly two-thirds of an Ohio public university's budget, said Eric Fingerhut, chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents. But that support began to erode.
So if college loans are a necessity for most students, what does that say about American culture? How much do we really value higher education?
If students are having sex in class, isn't it safe to say that the teacher isn't doing his/her job? Yet in Louisiana, the kids face felony criminal charges.
I recently heard from an American high school teacher who wishes that his high school wasn't obligated to continue tolerating students until they are 21:
I am a high school teacher. We have a student who: often cuts school, often cuts class, never does any work...I know par for the course in today's society. Here are the kickers of the situation: He is 20 years old, parents live in South America, he lives in an apt near campus (with another horrific student), he has no job, barely speaks English, and according to his academic record he has no possibility of ever graduating from this HS. His stated purpose in coming to school is be "be near the 14 year old girls". He will stay until he is 21 when he is legally obligated to leave.The school administration is well aware of this "kid". It was apparently confirmed recently that he does live in our jurisdiction, and we have to keep him until he turns 21 in the spring. Everyone seems covered legally, it just turns my stomach.
Pamela Rogers, 28 and a former elementary school teacher, spent six months in jail for having sex with a 13-year-old student. Recently, she was arrested again, for allegedly communicating with the boy on MySpace.