Education

AMITE — The Tangipahoa Parish school officials are exploring ways to expand virtual learning opportunities in grades 6-12, but some board members are concerned about the program's ability to meet the needs of at-risk students.

Chief Academic Officer Melissa Stilley tells The Advocate (http://bit.ly/LPNZSY ) implementing a virtual learning program would allow the district to provide more opportunities for learning while addressing the system's needs, including saving money.

BATON ROUGE — The Louisiana Association of Educators says it too will file suit to throw out a set of sweeping education changes pushed by Gov. Bobby Jindal and passed by lawmakers in the just-ended legislative session.

Directors of the teachers union voted Saturday to file suit over changes to the state's elementary and secondary school funding formula that will pay for a statewide voucher program, online schools, college tuition scholarships and an expansion of charter schools.

Alan Alda challenged scientists to explain what a flame is to an 11-year-old. Three months and more than 800 entries later he is back with the winner of the contest. Ira Flatow and guests discuss the winning entry and why the contest was an effective exercise in science communication.

Each school year, more than 700,000 California students — predominantly black and Latino — are suspended or expelled.

Robert, a talkative sixth-grader in the city of Richmond, has been suspended three times from his elementary school in the West Contra Costa Unified School District. If he gets suspended one more time, he says, he might get expelled. [NPR has withheld his last name because he is a minor.]

Transcript

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

We're going to hear now about some surprising consequences of the weak housing market in this country. It turns out that the value - even on a paper - of a home can affect the college choices that a family makes.

NPR's science correspondent Shankar Vedantam regularly joins us to discuss social science research. He's here this morning to talk about those new findings. And good morning.

SHANKAR VEDANTAM, BYLINE: Hi, Renee.

MONTAGNE: This new research, describe it for us.

Imagine a school where every child gets instant, personalized writing help for a fraction of the cost of hiring a human teacher — and where a computer, not a person, grades a student's essays.

It's not so far-fetched. Some schools around the country are already using computer programs to help teach students to write.

There are two big arguments for automated essay scoring: lower expenses and better test grading. Using computers instead of humans would certainly be cheaper, but not everyone agrees on argument No. 2.

The job market is still bleak for young people with only high school diplomas. Nearly half of high school graduates are still looking for full-time work, according to a new report by Rutgers University's John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development.

Freeman Hrabowski was named one of TIME magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World," earlier this year. He heads the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and helped transform the school into one of the country's top institutions in graduating students of color in science, math and engineering. He talks with host Michel Martin.