Education

Girl Scouts Louisiana East recently held its second annual STEM Extravaganza. The event is designed to get girls excited about science, technology, engineering and math — fields typically dominated by men. Girl Scouts from grades K-12 came to the event, held at Dillard University.

STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math, and it’s quite the buzzword these days in the education world. Teachers are looking at ways to encourage their students to be more math-oriented. For one program in New Orleans, the solution is to start introducing math early — as early as preschool.

In a recent story, Nola.com / The Times-Picayune education reporter Danielle Dreilinger took a look at the many empty buildings and vacant lots still owned by the Orleans Parish School Board. Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent floods damaged many school properties, though some sat vacant and rotting long before the storm.

This school year, teachers around the country changed their curricula to meet the new Common Core standards, a national set of standards mapping out what students should learn in math and English language arts.

Math teachers covered fewer topics in greater depth. English teachers cut back on fiction and assigned more supplemental readings — articles and essays that gave more context to, and offered up opinions about, classic works of literature.

New Orleans restructured its schools system after Hurricane Katrina. That’s meant rebuilding a sense of community and school spirit through new traditions. One young woman dedicated her efforts to create a legacy by becoming her high school’s first student mascot.

As the school year ends, education writer Sarah Carr sought a different approach to perspectives on schools.

She asked the students themselves to write opinion pieces on controversial topics: Discipline in schools, Teach for America teachers versus veteran educators, whether all students should go to a four-year college, and school desegregation.

Teenagers at the Bard Early College program submitted their thoughts, and The Hechinger Report has been publishing these essays.

As the stakes grow higher for standardized tests, so too does the desire to test more students — including younger and younger ones. WWNO wraps up its series "Behind the Test."

The three-year-olds at Kids of Excellence child care center learn largely through play. Kristi Givens, the center’s director, tries to make sure they are ready for big school by the time they leave.

WWNO continues its series "Behind the Test" with a look at standardized testing through the lens of test anxiety. In the weeks leading up to the LEAP test, teachers do a lot to prepare students: drilling them on crucial skills, giving out practice tests, even holding pep rallies to boost confidence. But what about preparing students to cope with test-related anxiety?

Brittany Healy is leading a small group of fifth graders in a guided imagery activity. They’re sprawled out on a couch and sunken into bean bag chairs. Eyes shut, arms loose at their sides.