Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC) has added its name to a declaration focusing on the importance of women’s access to information and communication technologies (ICTs), and the link between access and increasing gender equity around the world. EDC and its co-signers will present the declaration at the United Nations’ World Summit on the Information Society being held in Tunis, November 16-18.
Nearly half the U.S. Latino population ages
18–25 have not completed high school, and
only 15 percent earn a postsecondary
degree, according to a recent report by the
Education Commission of the States. To
improve students’ opportunities for higher
education, EDC developed the project
known as PALMS (Postsecondary Access for Latino Middle-
High in the Peruvian Andes a grassroots movement supporting gender equity has taken hold. Led by a group of primary school students and their teachers, the community of Cerro de Pasco is taking a closer look at the implications of equal treatment and rights for men and women in the public and private spheres.
First Lady Laura Bush visited the EDC-operated Women’s Teacher Training Institute in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Wednesday. Accompanied by Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, Mrs. Bush was traveling with a delegation of the U.S.-Afghan Women’s Council, which aims to strengthen partnerships between the two nations, especially to promote education for women. While at the Institute, Mrs. Bush participated in a roundtable discussion with students and teachers.
The face of America is changing more rapidly and more dramatically than most observers had ever predicted. A preliminary analysis of the 2000 census revealed a more rapid growth among our nation’s minority population than was earlier predicted and a dramatic slow-down in growth among the majority population.
The town of Immokalee, just 40 miles inland from Florida’s Gulf Coast, is surrounded on three sides by citrus groves and tomato fields. Immokalee Middle School serves more than 1,000 students. Of these, 72 percent are Hispanic and 12.5 percent are Haitian. More than 88 percent of the students receive free or reduced-price lunch.
Every other Monday night, in a temporary office located in the Waltham (Mass.) Hospital, a one-of-a-kind Board of Directors convenes. The issues before the board on this night are typical of many social service agencies: the cost of tuition for the workshops they offer; the success of recent outreach efforts; the development of parent councils in the local schools; the new accounting software. But the board itself isn’t at all typical.
“Good early child care programs build on what each child brings to the center—in terms of culture, language, and experiences,” says EDC’s Costanza Eggers-Piérola. “But
how do non-Latino staff reach out to Latino families? How do they reinforce early literacy skills among non-English-speaking children? How do they attract and support Latino staff members?”
Every Friday, just when most school staff and students are heading home for the weekend, about 130 girls gather at the King Open School for one of their favorite activities of the week. Friday is Science Club for Girls day, when the elementary school girls build bridges, dissect cow hearts, or produce chemical reactions. Working in teams, the K-7 girls try out new skills, learn from older students, and meet professional scientists.
New and emerging technology tools have a vast potential to make educational materials and programs accessible to many more students, provided the tools are designed with the broadest possible range of students in mind. That approach-called "universal design"-should be codified into federal law, according to EDC’s Center for Children and Technology (CCT) and a coalition of partners.
The GE Fund today released a new study that documents obstacles and solutions for improving minority and female student performance in pursuing careers in science, engineering, and technology (SET). Upping the Numbers, co-authored by EDC and Campbell-Kibler Associates, is one of the first studies to gather data on what really works to increase under-represented students’ interest and success in these fields.
Eugene Collins, Director of Natural Sciences and Math at Fisk University, credits a high school teacher with encouraging him to study science. So does Arthur Washington, who today serves as Dean of Arts and Sciences at Florida A&M University. Both share a concern, however, about where the high school science teachers for the next generation of African American students will come from.
EDC is searching the country for middle schools that feature “academic excellence, developmental responsiveness, and social equity.” Would some of those same schools also earn high marks for inclusive practices?
At the heart of Project ASSIST is the action reflection process, a carefully structured, time-limited discussion format that focuses on the work of three students chosen by their classroom teacher to represent the range of students in his or her class.
This past summer, a group of science teachers from northern Illinois
spent six weeks poring over student work from Japan, Germany, the
Czech Republic, and six other countries. As part of an EDC online
workshop, the Illinois teachers logged on to a website to review
student work and accompanying commentary from teachers.
How do we know that a new approach works, adding to a practitioner’s knowledge, effectiveness, and ability? And if it does work, how can we use the model to reach more practitioners? These questions are central to two of EDC’s latest experiments with online professional development.
In the summer of 1960, reverend Solomon B Caulker, an African college administrator from Sierra Leone, travelled to Israel to attend an international conference on improving science education in developing countries. After listening to several papers on nuclear power, Caulker stood up to address the group.
Toward the end of the Live Talk discussion program that opened EDC’s recent violence prevention summit, the audience of 200 people grew silent as Sha-King Graham, 17, spoke about the police officer who had killed his sister.
Today, thanks to the efforts of EDC, 20 Latina mothers from Waltham, Massachusetts, are enrolled in a class that offers them not only English language instruction but also lessons in job readiness, social skills, community action, health, and self-esteem.
After RAP, the longest-running EDC project comprises our largest body of equity work: the Women’s Educational Equity Act Resource Center (WEEA). For more than two decades, the WEEA Resource Center has developed, published, and distributed innovative, gender-fair materials to teachers and education leaders around the country.
In a large conference room, several groups of adults gather around an assortment of batteries, copper wires, and light bulbs. Their task is to discover how many different ways they can illuminate the bulbs using only this rudimentary electrical equipment.