Sharing Web Resources

The name of the organization I selected: Pre[K]Now: A Campaign of the Pew Center on the States
                                                            http://www.preknow.org/
Pre-K Now is a public education and advocacy campaign that offers free high-quality pre k-kindergarten for all three and four years olds. In addition, Pre-K Now raises awareness about the need for pre-k for all children.

Identify one current issue/trend from the Pre-K News Clips (info@preknow.org) that caught my attention was about: Hispanic achievement gap is narrowing in Oregon. According to the National Center for Education Statistics released a report that look at the performance of both white and Hispanic fourth-graders and eighth-graders in all fifty states. Although the change were small, however, Hispanics and white students are showing higher level of skills in both states. In Eastern Oregon, where fifty-percent of the student population is Hispanic. The fourth grade reading achievement is higher than the twenty-five point nationwide average. Teachers at the Oregon schools are encouraged to get their English Language Learners endorsement or at least attend short institutes on language development. Also, the school recruits as many Spanish speaking teachers as possible. In addition, with the help of special programs such as Generation College at the high school, many Hispanic students are becoming the first in their families to earn a college degree (Mills,2011). This article helped me to see that Hispanics attending school in Oregon are capable of learning and achieving as long they are given the right tools, such as English language teachers and special programs (Generation College).

In addition the Pre-K Newclips (info@preknow.org) talked about an article: Opportunity: Saving future of education. The U.S. Department of Education released data that included surveys that a total of three-thousand of the seven-thousands school district offered no Algebra II classes. Over two-million students in some seven-thousand-three-hundred schools had no access to calculus classes. Also, they found that schools serving mostly black students are twice as likely to have teachers with only one or two years of experience, compared to schools within the same district that serve mostly white students. According to William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution said, "those numbers mean that the country's future labor force will depend on how well this country is able to educate a new population of children." On the other hand, children who are being born now without proper education, they will be a burden, not a blessing, in the future. This is definitely food for thought!