The Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize honors those who excel in their advancement of education and who make a difference in the world with their achievements. Individuals can be nominated by submitting an entry to the judging board. Judges choose winners from the pool of nominees, and the winners are awarded a $25,000 prize as well as a trophy. The award covers three categories: elementary, secondary, and post-secondary.

The selection procsess for the Prize for 2011 involves analysis of educators’ use and propagation of technological tools in educational contexts, with emphasis on their use to ensure career-readiness and promoting well-roundedness of students. For details, click here. The entry deadline is March 18.

Changes in requirements for the federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) program are having the intended effect of channeling more resources to low-performing high schools, according to Early State Implementation of Title I School Improvement Grants under the Recovery Act, a report released February 23 by the Center on Education Policy (CEP).

CEP’s analysis – which is based on anonymous results from two state surveys – also found that while states are using the funds to expand technical assistance to low-performing schools, some respondents reported that the SIG program could be better targeted to help schools that most need assistance. To see the full report, visit the CEP website.

 

 

 

A survey of 2,200 online mothers of children between two and five years old in the U.S., Canada, the EU5 (U.K., France, Italy, Germany, Spain), Japan, Australia, and New Zealand found that more small children can play a computer game than ride a bike.

While I guess it's great that kids are so tech-savvy, the study points out that they may not be getting the "life skills" they need in other areas of their lives. To learn more about the results of the study, read the full article by Larry Magid in the Technology section of the Cnet News website.

Chaser, a border collie who lives in Spartanburg, South Carolina, with owner John W. Pilley, has the largest vocabulary of any known dog. She knows 1,022 nouns. Her accomplishment displays unexpected depths of the canine mind and may help explain how children acquire language.

After retiring in 2004, Pilley read a report about Rico, a border collie that can recognize 200 items. A psychologist who taught for 30 years at Wofford University, Pilley decided to repeat the experiment using a technique he had developed for teaching dogs. To learn more, read the full article by Nicholas Wade in the Science section of the New York Times.

 

 

 

 

 

A new "data brief" from the Broad Foundation identifies which of the 100 Broad Prize-eligible districts are performing better than their state averages in serving African-America, Hispanic, and low-income students. The Broad Prize is an annual award that honors large urban school districts that demonstrate the strongest student achievement and improvement while narrowing achievement gaps between income and ethnic groups. For further information, access the full data brief.