http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/education/first-time-foreign-students-in-us-increased-by-8.html?_r=1&ref=internationaleducation
summary: According to this artice, from 2010 to 2011, the rate of the international students in U.S is increased at first time. The research announced that the rate is up to 8%. Chinese students have contributed increasing rate compared with 2011, they are coming U.S to study more 20% than last year. Noticeably, the students from Middle east and Turkey came more 10% than before.
About 200 graduate schools also researched which subject is popular. Education and the physical and earth sciences have high proportion of enrollment. However, they chose doctoral's progrmas a lot, master's program is decreased from 2010
response: As time goes by, the students who want to study in U.S is increasing , they are pursuiting their dream and equality of opportunity both. Because sometimes the education of America provide more chance than other country but one complainning thing is tuition is really high... Students will come more so the council of school may decrease the tuition of international students.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Zuyan’s Summary
Summary of “Income Slides to 1996 Levels”
By CONOR DOUGHERTY
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904265504576568543968213896.html
According to Conor’s article “Income Slides to 1996 Levels?” (SEPTEMBER 14, 2011) critics have argued that the income in the typical American family has dropped from the last 3 years and the economy went back to the point of the 1996 level. Because the economy was bad, more families were living below the poverty line and more people lose their jobs. This article is argues about how the economy changed in these years and how the bad economy influence people’s daily life.
First, according to the Census, Conor showed the income of average family fell 2.3% compare to 2010; compare to the year 1999, the income now was 7.1% below the year 1999, which showed us how the economy went bad in these years and the gain boom age in 2000s has gone. The full-time year income fell, but in the other hand, median income went up in women recent years even though they still make 77 cents of a dollar earned by men.
Conor also mention about the fraction of Americans living in poverty went up to 15.1% and around 22% of the children are now living below the poverty line. From 2007 to 2010, the nation’s per capita net worth gained which is good to people; in the other hand, the biggest asset in American family is their homes, but now the value is decreasing. However, the recovery is slow and it going to take a while for the economy to recovery.
Conor showed the examples of people lose their jobs and people moved from big house to apartment because the bad economy. From the census report, more and more people are worried about the American economy in the future. More than 140’000 people lose their jobs, poverty rates among people younger than 18 grew 20% more than year 2010 and more people lacking in their health insurance. Meanwhile, the gap between the rich Americans and poor Americans did not change much.
Response
In my opinion, the economy caused a lot of problem to people and their families. For those who live in the top level, it is not a big deal for living and having extra family activities. For the middle-class people in the America, they are having hard time looking for the jobs and they have to be hard work even though the full-time job will not pay that much like in the past. As for the people who live below the poverty line, I think the government will help them from the anti-poverty programs, such as subsidized housing, food stamps and the Earned Income Tax Credit.
Final Summary of Myung Chan Kim
Summary of “Since 1990s, U.S. Students’ Math Has Sharpened, but Reading Lags” By Sam Dilllon
According to Sam Dillon’s article ”Since 1990s, U.S. Students’ Math Has Sharpened, but Reading Lags” in the New york times (November 1, 2011), federal officials said that elementary and middle school students showed significant progress in math while they have no progress in reading over last two decades. In addition to this fact, Mr.Driscoll who is the chair man of the department of education and experts offered some assumption. There has been improvements of the math in the United States, since children study most of math in school, although math education in the United States is below than some high math education countries. However, many students don’t spend much time on reading.
The score on recent test of reading and math in the 4th and 8th grade students all over the country brought out only insignificant transitions. The average fourth and eighth students increased only one point from tests scores of 2009 in math and reading but average math score was higher than reading.
In contrast to fourth grade students’ score in math which was 13 percent in 1990, fourth graders gained 40 percent points in this year. However, fourth grade students score in reading gained only 5 percent points in this year. Sharon Darling who is founder of the National Center for family was despaired of this facts but not astonished because he think that students spend same amount of time outside as they spend in school and since there are 30 million parents and caregivers who are not good at reading in the U.S., they might can’t teach their children well.
New York’s score of tests showed the national tendency which students are gaining high scores faster in math than reading because, in reading, they increased 4 percentage points in this year from 1992, while they increased 14 percentage points in math in this year from 1992. However, in this year, fourth grade scores in New York remarkably decreased and New York became the only state where math scores decreased.
Response
In general, i thought, many American students wasn’t good at math (Paragraph 40 in chapter 9). However, after i read this article, i totally changed my mind because, many of them are good at math than reading. When i was in Norwood High school in the city of Cincinati and state of Ohio, i realized that many students are trying to work on their math more than reading because, some of them thought reading is too hard. In addition to my experience in America, i also found out that many students in America might like math than reading because as this article showed, average students are gaining higher score in math than reading. Therefore, i suggest that teachers should give students more interesting readings as assignments in order to make them more interested in reading. Then it will naturally leads to gaining high score in reading. However, they should not lose focus on math.
Jun Summary and Respond
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1355/is_n24_v83/ai_13609576/?tag=content;col1
Black woman awarded $415,000 in racial discrimination case April 12 1993 Johnson Publishing Co.
Summary
A 37 years old Black woman Anita Holt got $415,000 from out of court settlement by Life Care Services Corp which is considering changing their hiring and promotion system. Three years ago, she declined to promote because her race could give bad effects to the company even if she holds master’s degree. Thus Ms. Holt sued the company during working at a retirement care consulting firm in Massachusetts by co-owner. The company responded quickly. The company distribute the letter tells about their fault and their damage to lose the ability person to their all employees. As a result, she was satisfied for the company’s respond. Bruce A. Fredrickson who is attorney of Ms. Holt added there is discrimination in the U.S and it is still perceptible, also this case will effect to employers to rethink about civil rights avoiding discrimination.
Respond
After I read this article, I felt the importance of protecting society from racial discrimination. The amount of money was so big that we can see how the government put the racial discrimination too important. Nowadays, we don’t see the news article like this much (this article was written in 1993) and it was the effort of government. The article was saying “the company also agreed to distribute a two-page letter to all its employees acknowledging “errors in judgment and practice”” it means to me that every employee will try not to have discrimination in their mind. I have never worked at the company, but I don't really understand why discrimination exists in the work place. American values have equality of opportunity and hard work. She did have equality of opportunity when she was in the company except promotion process and she did hard work getting master’s degree but as a result, she couldn’t promote only because of race and this is so bad.
Final Summary and Response from Paulo!
The Left's "Inequality" Obsession
July 19, 2007
According
to the article “the left’s inequality obsession” by Arthur C. Brooks the
inequality in the US between the rich and poor has grown even more in the past
years. Statistics show a growing difference between these two socio-economic
groups. While the
incomes in the higher class increased by two-thirds, and in the middle one
quarter, the lower class has gotten a raise in just one fifth. It’s is
something to be worried about experts say. The velocity for rich for getting
richer is considerable faster than the time that takes poor to get richer. The problem
is not just the fact that difference exist, the biggest problem is that the gap
has grown during the time. In fact, in 1973 average wealthy family earned as
much as tenth times an average poor family, while now the difference has grown
to 15 times bigger. Other example of this inequality is the one given from
president Obama. He affirmed that an average CEO earns more than an average
worker in a whole year. This difference has given terms from experts as John
Edwards who called it “the two Americas” or Sen. Hillary Clinton who called
present’s economy as "trickle-down economics without the trickle." The
difference has been seen as source of unhappiness or miserableness for the ones
in the lower class; therefore, new policies focus on solve the problem in inequality
so this “unhappiness” doesn’t grow. However, statistics show unhappiness hasn’t
grown even though the economic gap is becoming bigger. Studies proved that
Americans are focused more on comparison to other, so they believe they would
be happier earning more than their partners no mattering how much it would be.
Finally, in order to meet all American’s necessities there are plans of better repartition
of incomes; however, it’s seen as wrong for some people because it would create
laziness. Therefore, experts believe there has to exist equality and inequality,
so everyone works hard for their purposes.
Response
I
think inequality is something that exists and we cannot change; however, we can
try to make it smaller between different social groups. Even though I believe
money doesn’t buy happiness, I think it is always better to have financial
support, so you don’t have to care about money. The people who have more are
more likely to focus on other things as job or education, while lower economic
groups have always the difficulty of paying bills and stuff. It makes their lives
different, so they cannot compete equally. Therefore, I agree that there must
be difference between those who did have the same opportunities and did not
work hard, but not between those who are born poorer or with fewer chances to succeed.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
“How to bring an end to the war over sex ed”, summarize and response by Therese
Summary
The Time Magazine article “How to bring an end to the war over sex ed” by Amy Sullivan-Anderson take a deeper look into the sex education in America[1]. The United States experienced a rise in teen births in the second year in a row in 2009. That is after 15 years with drop in this statistic. The change is not wanted, especially since the amount of teenage pregnancies is alarmingly high compared with other western countries. In the age group 15-19 the statistics from 2006 displays that 41.9 give birth for every 1000 youth. The same number in Canada differ with13.3 per 1000(more than three times less). South Carolina is a state that is behind the national average in teen pregnancies (12 point higher), but luckily have had a great fall in the birth-numbers (27% decline). The change is partly because of the 1988 comprehension health education act the state introduced. But the continuing high statistic is worrying the population in Anderson County (170,000 inhabitants) which is mainly religious.
The organization United Ways - with Carol Burdette in the front – wanted to do something, and made contact with Impact, which is a teen-pregnancy-prevent organization. Burdette got to know that they had a sex education curriculum, but they did not get room in the schools. The South California public schools are by the act implied to have 12.5 hours of sex education, but most of them have abstinence-only (not having sex before marriage) programs since they are funded by the federal government. This is although research show that comprehensive programs are the best. Douglas Kirby’s neutral studies were conducted over more than three decades, and concluded that abstinence-only programs had no effect on sexual behavior. In contrast half of the comprehensive programs led to a delayed debut, reduce of sex partners, and an increase in condom use. There is also a difference in the type of comprehensive programs: the old about safe sex is not working, while the new that concentrates about behavior in teens is working. This type also is favored by a superior majority of the parents, and the cost of unplanned and teen pregnancies is high (in US: $ 9 billion). Another problem is that teachers have few standards to follow; it is as many as 17 American states that do not have required sex education.
In 2004, United Way, in cooperation with Impact, made efforts to start comprehensive sex educational programs in district 3 in Anderson County. They switched the teachers that often have this subject - the athletic coaches and the science instructors - out with real sex education teachers. Kristen Jordan has two courses at Starr-Iva middle school; the students are learning about basic sexuality and decision-making skill. Also in high schools is she an important character where she is a trusted person who offers good answers and a help in difficult situations. The students in this program are educated in more than abstinence since most youths today are not willing to wait. But also 66% wish they had waited longer. For that reason the students are given information about abstinence, birth control, sexually transmitted infections, and also given a better self-esteem. One of the teenagers that has benefitted from the change the schools did in the program is Jewels Morris Davis. She turned the family tradition around when she turned 16 without getting, or getting somebody else, pregnant. In a drug addict mother and foster care she turned to sex for affection. The program the school offered continued to be there for her, and others that needed support, and she changed her direction. Today she is happy and proud. She has set some clear goals, and is successful at school with attending cheerleading, the track team, and possesses a confident attitude.
Response
This article has a really good point; the American sex education needs to be taken seriously. I know from experience that the comprehensive type of sex education is great, and that a good sex education has a lot to say about the pregnancy rate. In Norway this has been the practices for many years and Norway has some of the lowest rates of teenage pregnancies. It lies around 10 per 1000. In my hometown we learn about sex, sexuality, decision-making, and saying no from an early age, with the biggest emphasis on this type of education in the middle school. In addition, and maybe most important for many, we have a house for the young with a central location in our town. This place is not only for sex education, but there are free doctors you can talk to about everything. It also has a café, concert room for local bands, workshops, filmmaking equipment, youth group, everything a young girl or boy needs to create a personal identity and feel a sense of community. It has really worked for the youths to have a place to go, and a place to be heard. I hope the American people eventually will help all young boys and girls to feel confident enough to make the decision to have sex, or not, when they are ready and in a healthy way.
[1] Sullivan-Anderson, Amy. "How to Bring An End to the War Over Sex Ed - TIME." Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews - TIME.com. Time Magazine, 19 Mar. 2009. Web. 16 Nov. 2011. <http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1886558,00.html>.
Summary and Article from Max
Congress Blocks New Rules on School Lunches by RON NIXON
According to The New York Times published on November 15, 2011
SUMMARY:
A proposition of the Agriculture Department about overhauling the American school lunch program was blocked by Congress on Monday. The proposed changes were meant to mainly decrease overweight from kids by adding more fiber and multiple vitamins to lunch menus. The rules would have reduced numerical potatoes and tomato paste served in school meals. But late Monday, the department was disappointed with the lawmakers when blocked from using money to carry out the proposed rules. Fastfood companies also disagreed due to high cost meals and children distaste. Approximately, $6.8 billion would have been cost for the proposal over the next five years. Besides, Nutrition experts called the action by Congress for take time to consider improving the nutritional standards in school lunches and discussing childhood obesity.
“It’s a shame that Congress seems more interested in protecting industry than protecting children’s health,” said Margo G. Wootan, director of nutrition policy at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit research group.
REPONSE:
In my opinion, American school meals are never good. I certainly do not believe the quality of nutritional diet at most school nowadays. Kids should bring their own food at home. It would be the best choice that both sides can compromise simply. In addition, parents are the only option of giving and providing their kids the best healthy they want in their lunch box. Only parents know more about their children and determine whether their kids would eat. Schools offer kids junk food in other to lower money cost in perspective. Also, the Agriculture Department should not only take a side look at pizza and French fries. Other fast food can cause obesity disease to children such as hamburger and coke.
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