PEN of Florida
|
PEN Website
|
|
|
|
Ten Ways to 'Go Green' and Mark Earth Day
By CATHERINE HUTCHINGS AND HOLLY EPSTEIN OJALVO
April 22, 2010 is the 40th annual Earth Day celebration. Whether you teach about global warming and climate change or are just looking for a way to commemorate this anniversary with your students or children, here are 10 starting points, which we'll update as more Times resources become available.
How will you celebrate it in your home or classroom? Tell us here.
Reflect on the Past - What do you know about Earth Day? Test your knowledge with our Student Crossword, or quiz others by using the events in a new New York Times interactive timeline that details 70 years of environmental milestones, from protecting the Bald Eagle through the Clean Air Act, Chernobyl, Exxon Valdez, the Kyoto Protocol and the Copenhagen Climate Talks. Teachers, you might list the events on the board and have your students try to put them in chronological order first, then show them the graphic.
Read more
|
Teacher pay veto overshadows other Florida education bills
While one of the most controversial education bills in memory went down with a veto, a number of other proposed changes could have a lasting impact on Florida schools.
BY HANNAH SAMPSON
HSAMPSON@MIAMIHERALD.COM
Educators, parents and students cheered and then took a collective sigh of relief when Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed a bill that would have upended the current system of paying and firing teachers.
While that proposed law dominated daily news coverage, a handful of others that could change the state's education landscape significantly moved forward without nearly the same level of public attention.
And those are almost certain to become law -- or, in one case, go to the voters to change existing law.
They are:
· Adding more rigorous math and science classes to graduation requirements and replacing high school FCATs in those subjects with end-of-course exams in algebra, geometry and biology.
· Asking voters in November if they approve of changing the 2002 class size amendment, which meets its final deadline for implementation this year. Instead of requiring each classroom to meet the mandates, the change would allow school-wide averages to be used.
· Expanding the state's voucher program for low-income kids so private schools could eventually collect as much as 80 percent of the per-student money given to public schools by the state. The program gives companies a tax credit if they award scholarships for approved private schools.
``This was a banner year for education,'' said state Rep. Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, who supported all of the measures. ``With or without Senate Bill 6.''
Read more
|
How Not to Raise a Bully: The Early Roots of Empathy
By MAIA SZALAVITZ
Since the Jan. 14 death of Phoebe Prince, the 15-year-old in South Hadley, Mass., who committed suicide after being bullied by fellow students, many onlookers have meditated on whether the circumstances that led to her after-school hanging might have been avoided.
Could teachers have stepped in and stopped the bullying? Could parents have done more to curtail bad behavior? Or could preventive measures have been started years ago, in early childhood, long before bullies emerged and started heaping abuse on their peers?
Increasingly, neuroscientists, psychologists and educators believe that bullying and other kinds of violence can indeed be reduced by encouraging empathy at an early age. Over the past decade, research in empathy - the ability to put ourselves in another person's shoes - has suggested that it is key, if not the key, to all human social interaction and morality.
Without empathy, we would have no cohesive society, no trust and no reason not to murder, cheat, steal or lie. At best, we would act only out of self-interest; at worst, we would be a collection of sociopaths.
Read more
|
Florida House and Senate get beyond impasse in budget negotiations
By Steve Bousquet, Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau
In Print: Tuesday, April 20, 2010
TALLAHASSEE - Negotiations on a new state budget picked up steam Monday as legislators sought common ground in hopes of bringing the 2010 session to a smooth conclusion late next week.
Talks temporarily collapsed over the weekend when the House and Senate could not make a fundamental decision on how much general tax revenue to allocate to specific budget areas, but they reached a compromise Monday.
That allowed negotiations to proceed later than usual, and left enough time to finalize a budget by April 27 and end the session by April 30.
To get the talks off dead center, the House agreed to plug in $880 million from an anticipated congressional extension of a federal Medicaid stimulus program on the condition that most of the money be set aside for savings. Gov. Charlie Crist and the Senate provisionally spent that money on an array of human services, but Senate President Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, accepted the House's position to spend only $115 million.
Read more
|
Become a fan of PEN of Florida on Facebook!
Click on the link below and become a fan today!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
