The latest education news from Beaverton and beyond.
Powerpoint champion: Tyler Millis is better than you at PowerPoint. Now, the 16-year-old high school student and PowerPoint national champion from Ft. Myers, Fla., is out to prove he's better at Microsoft's ubiquitous (and oft-maligned) presentation software than everyone else in the world, too.
Teacher tenure: Why are so many low-income and minority kids getting second-class educations in the U.S.? That question is at the center of the heated debate about teacher tenure. In New York today, a group of parents and advocates, led by former CNN and NBC anchor Campbell Brown, filed a suit challenging state laws that govern when teachers can be given tenure and how they can be fired once they have it. NPR
Perception vs. truth: Do educators' perceptions of how disadvantaged their students are matter? Put another way, when teachers think their students are underprivileged, do they have lower expectations for them, and do their students achieve less at school? In a July 22, 2014, article "Poverty and the perception of poverty – how both matter for schooling outcomes," Andreas Schleicher, director of education and skills at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), argues that perceptions often matter more than reality. Hechinger Report
Tracking kids: A federal effort to provide free tracking devices to children with autism and other disabilities who are at risk of wandering is getting a boost. Earlier this year, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., introduced a bill known as Avonte's Law which would allocate $10 million per year in federal funding to provide electronic tracking devices to families wanting help monitoring their children.
-- Wendy Owen