Posts Tagged ‘Education’

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Cousteau & Co. Dive To Draw Attention To Waterways

Monday, June 14th, 2010
Fabien Cousteau, grandson of the famous Jacques, hopes to improve New York waterways with his nonprofit and a public school partnership.

  • Plant a Fish, Mr. Cousteau’s new nonprofit, focuses on ocean restoration around the world. Its first project:  The Hudson River.
  • Cousteau is working with students from the Urban Assembly New York Harbor School, a public city high school in Bushwick, Brooklyn, to plant thousands of oysters near Bay Ridge on Monday, June 14th.
  • The Harbor School offers its students scuba diving lessons and constructs its curriculum around New York’s waterways. The school will relocate to Governors Island this fall.

Facts & Figures

  • On Monday, June 14th, Mr. Cousteau and The Harbor School expect to plant 130,000 oysters.
  • Future Plant a Fish projects include planting one million corals in the Maldives and Florida Keys and one billion sea turtles in the mangroves of El Salvador.
  • The estimated cost per program ranges from $15,000 to $65,000

Best Quote
“We need to see our natural world as a bank account where we have to live on the interest rather than eating away at the capital.  Plant a Fish is one of the ways that we can start restoring that capital.”  – Fabien Cousteau, Founder, Plant A Fish

In The Future, There May Be Fewer Doctors, More Patients

Monday, June 7th, 2010

Access to adequate medical care is a serious problem in the developing world. But could the U.S. face a similar crisis?

  • Some major medical associations are warning that there may be a deficiency of tens of thousands of doctors as soon as 2020, especially in traditionally underserved areas like inner cities and rural towns.
  • There are many reasons for this: an uneven concentration of specialists in certain fields due to compensation differences, an aging population with unique and extensive medical needs, an increasing overall population, and increased access to medical care thanks to health care reform.
  • But not everyone agrees that the problem is so dire – there are doctors who suggest that this warning is simply an attempt by medical training institutions to demand more funding.

Facts & Figures

  • For a 30-minute office visit, Medicare will pay a general physician $103.42; it will pay $449.44 for a colonoscopy performed in the same amount of time.
  • Between 2000 and 2030, the number of Americans over 65 will double.
  • The Health Resources and Services Administration estimates that by the year 2020, there will be a deficit of 65,560 primary-care physicians.

Best Quote

“When we talk about a shortage, we are looking at the current way we provide care to people and say it has to be provided by a primary care physician. From community health workers to other services provided by physician assistants and nurse practitioners, so much of what can be addressed in terms of routine care can be performed by others.” – Kevin Barnett, Senior Investigator, Public Health Institute (Oakland, CA)

Governors In It To Win For Their Schools

Friday, November 13th, 2009

The Obama Administration is encouraging state-level education reforms with the inclusion of $4.35 billion “Race to the Top” incentive built into the federal stimulus.

  • Race to the Top is a federal grant that ties teacher and principal salaries to student test scores, adopts internationally benchmarked academic standards, improves lowest-performing schools, creates systems to track students long-term, and allows for the inclusion of more charter schools.
  • Although considered small by Washington standards, the grant is propelling state legislators to make changes so that their states are eligible for the funding.
  • In October, Governor Schwarzenegger (of California) signed a bill that links teacher pay to student test performance, after calling a special legislative session in August.

Facts & Figures

  • The United States educates an estimated 50 million students every year.
  • If distributed to each and every student, Race to the Top would provide an addtional $87 per year.
  • Grant distribution begins in January 2010.

Best Quote

“They don’t want to be on the losing side of this. Everybody wants to be the education governor, but nobody has asked them to prove it in the past several years. This year the onus is back on them.” – Charles Barone, Democrats for Education Reform

Doing Homework With No Home

Monday, October 5th, 2009

The federal government tried to look out for homeless students by requiring certain allowances be made to keep them in school. But in a bad economy, who should foot the bill for this crucial assistance?

  • In the wake of the recession, the number of homeless children enrolled in public schools has surged. The trickle-down effects of layoffs and foreclosures have begun to strain the resources of public school districts as they struggle to keep kids enrolled while their families deal with financial ruin.
  • Federal law requires that a special liaison to the homeless be appointed in every school district. In addition, districts must immediately place any student that enrolls without requiring proof of residence, and they must allow students to remain enrolled at the same school even when their families are forced to move.
  • Assistance can include special car or bus services and even special administrative positions created just to manage the school-related obstacles transient children face. Some of the cost of these services is absorbed by grants and federal aid, but still they present budget issues which are sometimes visited upon local taxpayers.

Facts & Figures

  • Since 2007, according to the Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth, the number of homeless children seems to have increased by 75-100% in many school districts.
  • In the 2006-2007 school year, there were 679,000 homeless students reported. In spring of 2009, there were more than 1 million.
  • A school district in San Antonio saw the number of homeless students double this year to 1,000 in the first two weeks of school alone.

Best Quote

“We see 8-year-olds telling Mom not to worry, don’t cry.” – Bill Murdock, Chief Executive of Eblen-Kimmel Charities

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