Education
Policing schools in Tulsa
A two-part series by the Tulsa World analyzes crime on public school campuses. Since 2005, Tulsa schools have called city police more than 9,450 times. Reasons for the calls include assaults, drug use, weapons found and burglaries. Child abuse was the leading reason for the calls, as teachers and counselors are increasingly finding abused children.
Read MoreDisparity found in college choices for students in state-funded program
Students in a state-funded program that sends them from the city to suburban high schools are far less likely to attend top-tier colleges than are the suburban residents of the schools they attend, a study by The Boston Globe has found. Almost 90 percent of the students enrolled in the program go to college. But…
Read MoreAthletes’ SAT scores lag at major colleges and universities
An investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that football and men’s basketball players on the nation’s big-time college teams averaged hundreds of points lower on their SATs than their classmates. The investigation involved using state open records acts to request reports that colleges must file with the NCAA disclosing SAT scores of their athletes. More than 50…
Read MoreDramatic improvements in test scores raise questions
Some Georgia schools made astonishing improvements when their failing students were re-tested, according to an analysis of testing data by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The highly unusual turnarounds raise questions about the integrity of the testing and the accuracy of the scores, experts said. The state is now investigating.
Read MoreFixing D.C.’s Schools: The Charter Experiment
A series by The Washington Post takes a hard look at charter schools in Washington, D.C. Approximately one-third of city’s children attend these independent, nonprofit schools. The investigation shows that much of the $1.6 billion in local and federal money spent on charter school over the past 12 years has gone to the purchase and…
Read MoreIndustrial pollution impacting air quality at nearby schools
USA TODAY’s Blake Morrison and Brad Heath have published a package of stories using government data to examine the air quality of American schools located near industrial plants. They found that thousands of schoolchildren are exposed to dangerous levels of carcinogens, metals and other chemicals. The Environmental Protection Agency has never run these models and…
Read MoreCertain majors find large clusters of student athletes
USA TODAY looked at the majors of more than 9,000 junior and senior athletes in football, baseball, softball, and men’s and women’s basketball and found high rates of concentrations of athletes in certain majors at 83% of schools. Some schools had several “clusters” and more than half of the clusters are what some analysts refer…
Read MoreNYU campus crime reports are misleading
A report by Marc Beja and Adam Playford of Washington Square News (at New York University) brings to light issues with NYU’s reporting of campus crime statistics. Due to how the school defines campus addresses, only three of NYU’s 21 undergraduate dorms qualify as on-campus. “The tightly confined Clery map covers the buildings immediately around…
Read MoreCharter schools paid millions for absent students
An investigation by Thomas Hargrove and Gavin Off of Scripps News Service found that “taxpayers pay millions of dollars every month to educate tens of thousands of high school students who rarely or never show up for class, part of a growing trend of high absenteeism at privately operated schools.” Most charter schools are funded…
Read MoreAtlanta-area school districts fail to enforce vaccination requirements
While most schools in the Atlanta area meet the Georgia state standard for vaccination requirements, Alison Young of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that at least 99 schools’ kindergartners and 81 schools’ sixth-graders failed to meet that standard during the 2007-2008 school year, with many of the schools in Atlanta’s Fulton County. Before Young’s investigation, the…
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