12.18.07
Posted in General, News at 10:21 am by Paloma Cruz
Is Santa being too good to some teachers?
Expensive gifts and ‘wish lists’ raise the question for some schools
– Houston Chronicle2
[snip]
So when Sides, who never drank coffee, began raising kids of her own, she decided the annual teacher gift-giving routine needed an upgrade. Her wish list survey, handed out to her sons’ teachers at River Oaks Elementary each school year, quizzes them on everything from hobbies to favorite restaurants. Parents get copies of the answers and, come holiday time, go to work.
Such surveys — akin to bridal registries — are popping up in many elementary schools, both public and private. Parents in the Fort Bend school district say they’ve used them. And Annette Bieda, kindergarten teacher at Frost Elementary in the Lamar Consolidated School District, said her campus keeps a book of gift-idea surveys on file for parents.
[snip]
But the trend, while an aid to parents, plays a role in what some see as an extravagant turn in the holiday gift tradition. In the area’s more affluent public schools, parents have handed out everything from spa gift certificates to gold rings, teachers say. The change is nice for those who have worked for years in the classroom but has some administrators squirming.
In Katy, a handful of elementary schools now have gift guidelines, including limits on who can collect money for presents and recommendations that contributions be kept to a “reasonable amount.”
And earlier this month, the Fort Bend school district warned all employees against accepting anything worth more then $50.
[snip]
Footnotes
2 = article may expire in a few weeks
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12.17.07
Posted in News at 10:49 am by Paloma Cruz
Self-made immigrant is poised to take the lead at university
AN AMAZING JOURNEY FROM CUBA TO A&M
– Houston Chronicle2
The faded black-and-white photograph shows a family of four in their finest clothes, standing on an airport tarmac. Everyone is smiling, except for the little girl holding her maracas and teddy bear. She is crying.
The date: July 4, 1961. It’s the day they fled Cuba, starting an unlikely journey that has landed the toddler — now an accomplished scholar — on the doorstep of a historic presidency at Texas A&M University.
At first glance, Elsa Murano doesn’t fit the profile of the university’s typical chief executive — a white male over age 50. But A&M describes itself as “a unique American institution,” and what’s more uniquely American than a self-made immigrant who relied on her own determination to reach the top?
“It’s a tremendous reflection of what is possible,” Murano said after regents recently named her the only finalist for the presidency. “Only in America can a girl from Havana get to this point.”
[snip]
Footnotes
2 = article may expire in a few weeks
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12.05.07
Posted in News at 10:11 am by Paloma Cruz
Tuition: Earn More, Pay More?
Some public-college business majors pay more than their liberal arts peers. Schools claim the increases are necessary, but are they fair?
– Business Week
Eric DeFries, a senior business major at Utah State University in Logan, has watched his tuition slowly creep up two to three percentage points a year since he arrived as a freshman. The modest increases were bearable for DeFries, who’s studying finance. That all changed when he received an e-mail from the business school last spring informing him that because he was a business major, his tuition would be an additional $445 per semester, on top of his $2,150 base tuition and mandatory fees.
While many college students are concerned about rising tuition costs, undergraduate business students at Utah State’s Jon M. Huntsman School of Business and elsewhere are finding themselves facing costs they haven’t expected. For the first time this year, Huntsman undergrads who register for upper-division business classes are being charged an additional $35 per credit hour. The new fees will tack on an average of $735 more in tuition to their bills over the year, administrators say.
DeFries is part of a growing cohort of college students being singled out by schools because of their choice of major. Many universities are now deploying a practice known as differential tuition, charging different prices to individual students based on their majors or levels. It’s a model that is becoming increasingly widespread as public universities struggle with diminishing state financial support and higher operating costs.
[snip]
I don’t think this is fair. I was a communications major with a business minor, and this practice probably would have forced me to change minors.
It’s sad that we’re making college education increasingly less accessible in a time when we need college graduates more than ever. If this doesn’t change the country is in for a rude awakening.
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12.02.07
Posted in News at 1:00 am by Paloma Cruz
Three Houston schools make gold standard
– KHOU CBS Channel 111
Two HISD schools as well as a Houston-based charter school were ranked among the nation’s top 100 by U.S. News and World Report magazine. The magazine’s first foray into ranking public high schools was released Friday.
HISD’s gold-medal schools – those are the campuses ranked in the top 100 of the nation – were DeBakey High School for Health Professions at No. 87 and Carnegie Vanguard High School, which came in at No. 96.
Houston’s nationally acclaimed YES Prep School ranked No. 38.
[snip]
Footnotes
1 = may require free registration
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