By Kayla Gahagan

I came across an interesting factoid by the National Science Foundation in a report it issued for the upcoming school year. The report was about how teachers, students and parents can help busts myths about girls in science.

The NFS said the most common myths associated with girls in math and science were:

1) girls are less interested in science than boys,
2) Classroom interventions that work to increase girls’ interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) run the risk of turning off the boys
3) Science and math teachers are no longer biased toward their male students
4) When girls just aren’t interested in science, parents can’t do much to motivate them
5) At the college level, changing the STEM curriculum runs the risk of watering down important “sink or swim” coursework

While discussing the fifth myth, NFS said the mentality of weeding out weaker students in college majors, especially the quantitative ones – weeds out more women.

It said,
“This is not necessarily because women are failing. Rather, women often perceive “Bs” as inadequate grades and drop out, while men with “Cs” will persist with the class.”

While this is a great discussion about how there are fewer girls pursuing math and science career paths than boys in school, it is also brings up a good point about how gender roles play a part in how students view success in school and, how and if, that affects their choosing disciplines.

Is there more societal pressure on girls to achieve better grades, and if there is, particularly in math and science, does it have a negative effect on them – making them drop out faster than boys would if they aren’t meeting high expectations?

I’m trying to think back to high school, and college, and the different attitudes my male and female counterparts had about math and science class. If the NFS is right, I sure haven’t heard enough about this aspect of the debate. Read the myths report here.

Kayla and I have been talking about all the reporters she met at the education journalism conference at Columbia University this weekend. I asked her if she had asked them how they got to work at Time magazine, the New York Times, the Washington Post, etc. — what’s their secret? Are they just so much smarter than we are? She said she had been curious about that and had asked them. The answer has a lot to do with the cost of higher education and the connections it buys. When I was a kid my businessman dad used to lecture me (among other things) about the importance of networking — that it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. For these journalists, and for Kayla and I, our career paths have unfolded in a way that’s a result of where we went to school and the people we met at one job, then next — all of which happened in the West and Midwest. The big-city reporters grew up on the east coast and went to Ivy League schools there and then got jobs there. We were impressed for few minutes when we learned their entry-level salaries are in the $70,000 range. We were immediately unimpressed when we learned this is in an area where monthly rent is $2,500 to share a house with a roommate.

It’s an interested lesson for smart young people in South Dakota — do you stay home, take advantage of connections here and become a big player in your home state, contributing to the community here? Do you go to college “back east” where maybe they recruited you because people from SD are rare, and then struggle to make rent at your entry level job in Manhattan? I’m not saying there’s a right way or a wrong way, just that maybe all the glamour of the big time isn’t as rewarding as working hard and making a big difference in a great community like Rapid City — where you can rent a lot of house for $2,500 a month.

By Kayla Gahagan

I’m a long way from Rapid City right now - sitting cross legged on a comfy bed in a luxury hotel in downtown Manhattan. (They say there’s a swimming pool on the roof and I’ll check it out tomorrow, but right now and I am so tired and sweaty that I can hardly move.)

You’re probably wondering what this has to do with education, and I’m getting to that. I recieved a fellowship to attend a Hechinger Institute seminar through Teachers College at Columbia University.
It’s for new education reporters and the purpose is to gather the top education experts, research and information on the most up-to-date issues in education, and willing journalist, and throw us all in a room together for a weekend and trust that we will walk out as better, more informed reporters, ready to take on relevant, difficult stories in our communities.

After delayed flights, a one-mile run through the Washington, D.C. airport, arriving late enough to missed the Broadway show I had tickets for, discovering that my luggage was missing, staying the night in a shady hotel, and paying an arm and a leg to track down my missing luggage, I am here, and happy.

The conference started this afternoon; I took a walk through the New York Times (drooling and gawking), listened to a Columbia professor talk about better ways to incorporate multi-media into my stories, heard from one of the panelists on President Bush’s national math panel (more to come) and then concluded the evening by hearing from the newly elected president to the largest teacher’s union in the nation - Randi Weingarten with the American Federation of Teachers.

And to my pleasant surprise, I was seated at dinner tonight next to the new education reporter from Time magazine, a reporter with the Washington Post, a reporter from the Oregonian … I’m having a hard time believing I’m here.

I have lots of new information I’ll be getting to you as I go along - including information on how to access the national database for teacher contracts from the National Council on Teacher Quality, and what the AFT president had to say about No Child Left Behind and Barack Obama.

My head is swimming and I wish I could get into it all tonight, but I’m going to bed … finally. Tomorrow looks even more promising, as we are expected to hear from experts on pre-k and what consitutes academic rigor. At the end of the day, we’ll hear from reporters from the Seattle Times and the St. Petersburg Times, giving me tips on how to become a better education reporter.

Stay tuned. I’ll try and write tomorrow. We get an early start tomorrow and are done for the day by 4. Maybe I’ll catch that Broadway show after all.

By Kayla Gahagan

It’s that time of the year again – school districts across the country are approving budgets for the 2008-2009 school year. It seems that South Dakota isn’t the only state where districts are tightening belts to balance budgets with increased gas prices, higher health insurance and federal mandates requiring more and more programs in the classroom to help more students make it to the next benchmark.

In Texas, a database compiled by the Texas Education Agency, shows travel and expenses for superintendents in the state and how it compares to the overall budget. The purpose of the database, as author Peyton Wolcott points out, is not to criticize the spending of those superintendents, but to start an important dialogue between the community and the district.

What is appropriate spending for a superintendent in a small school district?

How do taxpayers want those dollars spent?

In times of “belt tightening,” should superintendents offer to cut travel, or pay for it out of their own pockets?

How does travel, (i.e. education conferences, seminars and workshops) play a role in the job of the superintendent and how does it make them better at their job?

If anything, there should be more databases like this. No one loses when there is thoughtful, constructive conversation about spending in education.

By Barbara Soderlin

The Journal reported today that AAA is having to rescue more people who have run out of gas on state highways.

Maybe they were headed to class.

The New York Times reports a big jump in the number of students signing up for online classes, saying they can’t afford the gas to get to class on campus. One woman interviewed said she thought she learned more in an actual classroom, but just couldn’t spend the money to get there.

I wonder if this will be a boon for National American University, which has invested heavily in online courses. We’ll have to check into that next week.

By Barbara Soderlin

The other day Kayla and I were talking to a newsroom colleague — who shall remain nameless — who surprised us by telling us that not only did he never graduate from college, he never earned a high school diploma, either, but instead got a GED. We were shocked, and probably secretly impressed, and I wondered what exactly was the point of spending all that money on a fancy degree. Of course I learned a lot in college, but most of what I studied on the path to my not-so-lucrative English degree I could have picked up free at a public library if I was so inclined.

One difference is, a generation separates Kayla and I from our colleague and I don’t think we would been hired without “BA” on our resumes, even though most of what we’re learning about journalism we’re learning as we go on the job, just like he did.

One of the struggles in public education today is the simmering debate over whether “every kid needs to go to college” or whether “every kid is college material,” as you’ll hear teachers say (often frustrated teachers who just can’t picture Johnny as college material, or don’t have the time to mold him into college material even if they do). From the ’60s, when my colleague was in high school, to the ’90s, when I was, the economy shifted far in favor of those with a college degree, with even those who’ve earned a two-year degree far outearning their high school graduate peers.

The demise of factory jobs and the rise of the “information age rewards education with money,” according to this column.

One complaint about high schools today is they’re staffed like they were for the last generation, and aren’t set up to help the majority of students actively plan for and pursue a college education. Kayla reported Sunday that Central High School, with more than 2,000 students, has fewer than five full-time counselors, and those counselors don’t just focus on academic advising, they’re also dealing with kids’ family and emotional problems. There’s no way they can have time to help kids decide what to do: regular or advanced algebra? SDSU or Kansas State? WDT or an apprenticeship? The military, or work? So unless a student is extremely persistent about getting help, or has a parent who is, there’s a good chance he or she will get to graduation day without ever having really studied the options and made an educated decision about what to do next. Thirty years ago, that was OK. Today, it’s a serious disadvantage.

By Barbara Soderlin

On this morning’s Today show, after scary segments about a sex offender and the possibility of your barbecue exploding, was something else to worry about: summer brain drain. Apparently kids lose months of learning over the summer and have to review a lot of the past year’s material each fall. An expert offered tips about how to keep your child intellectually engaged in spite of hours of free time. Some of them seemed useful — encourage your child to read, review some math problems, etc. — but the expert also had a big pile of educational products you can buy to engage junior.

It seems to me that the hours of free time can be educational, if the child is creative and imaginitive enough. Sure, every kid gets bored, but a library card, a Y pass and a bike should take care of much of that. I’d be interested in hearing from teachers about what they recommend parents do to keep the kids’ brains sharp in the hot summer.