American RadioWorks
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American RadioWorks - Anti-Pigeonhole Plan
New research shows how classroom teachers may be able to combat the impact of stereotype threat and help close the achievement gap.
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American RadioWorks - Teachers Teaching Teachers
How one exemplary school district does professional development despite lean times. Long Beach, Calif. has become a national model by using its own teachers to train teachers.
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American RadioWorks - Affirmative Action: Against
Why college admissions should be colorblind. The U.S. Supreme Court will soon rule on the latest affirmative action case. Last week we heard from a proponent of affirmative action. This week, the other side.
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American RadioWorks - Affirmative Action: For
Why being colorblind is a fine aspiration and a dangerous policy. The U.S. Supreme Court will soon rule on another affirmative action case. This week we hear the argument in favor of affirmative action.
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American RadioWorks - After Atlanta: More or Less...
A key analyst during the Atlanta cheating scandal tells us what can be done about cheating as Common Core standards come online.
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American RadioWorks - Rethinking Pell Grants
Pell Grants have been helping low-income students go to college for 50 years. A new report recommends changing the way they work.
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American RadioWorks - Happy Teachers
A new poll finds that American teachers lead the most satisfied lives, second only to physicians. What's making our overworked, underpaid public servants so happy?
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American RadioWorks - MOOC Recruiting
There's a talent war for computer engineers in Silicon Valley. That's why MOOCs are getting in the head hunting game, helping firms recruit their most successful students, who may not even have formal degrees.
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American RadioWorks - New GED Coming
In January of 2014 the GED exam is going digital and it's going to be harder to pass. This adult basic education instructors worried - what will happen to current students who need the credential in order to move up the economic ladder?
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American RadioWorks - Employers Want More From College...
According to a new survey of employers, American colleges don't produce enough qualified graduates for today's workforce. Among the complaints: colleges aren't teaching skills like communication, decision-making and analytical thinking.
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American RadioWorks - Education Sequestration
As the nation braces for cuts to federal programs under sequestration, a top education reporter describes how this new era will affect the already budget-strapped public schools.
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American RadioWorks - Financial Ed and the Common Core
If students learn about personal finance in grade school, they'll be more responsible spenders as adults. So goes the thinking behind a move to embed personal finance lessons into classes kids already take, like English and math.
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American RadioWorks - Project-Based Learning
A high school English teacher in Michigan says making videos of Shakespeare plays is better for students than memorizing facts for multiple-choice tests.
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American RadioWorks - Beating the Odds
We met Tracy Edwards last year during our reporting at the YES Prep charter school network in Houston, Texas. Unlike many YES Prep parents, Edwards graduated from a prestigious liberal arts college but says she struggled to make the best use of her degree. She hopes her own children will fare differently.
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American RadioWorks - Need-Based Aid
Most private schools give out aid packages based on merit, often trying to compete for students from wealthy families who could already afford to send them to college. But the president of Kenyon College in Ohio is calling for a nationwide return to a system of need-based aid.
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American RadioWorks - Mississippi Charter Debate
Mississippi legislators recently passed legislation that would allow charter schools in the state for the first time. In the Mississippi Delta, the schools report some of the weakest test scores and the state has the highest rate of childhood poverty in the nation. But that doesn't mean charters will be welcome with open arms.
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American RadioWorks - The Decline of Catholic Education
For much of the 20th century, a Catholic education was often a relatively inexpensive, higher-quality alternative to inner-city public schools. But our guest this week says the Catholic Church in America has moved away from its mission of educating the poor, which has forced many schools to either raise tuition or shut their doors.
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American RadioWorks - Testing Teachers Reprise
Teacher quality was in the news again last week with a PBS documentary about former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee creating a lot of buzz in the education world, and with the release of a much-anticipated study by the Gates Foundation on how to measure effective teaching. This week we reprise our 2010 documentary �Testing Teachers,� which took a close look at the research on what makes a good teacher.
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American RadioWorks - Merit Badges for Veterans
Veterans who enter the workforce often have a tough time translating their military experience to "resume-ready" skills. But a new web site could change that with a system of digital "merit badges" to show employers the skills a veteran has gained during his or her time in the service.
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American RadioWorks - Pre-K in OK
Oklahoma is one of the most politically conservative states in the nation and it's also home to one of the most successful publicly-funded preschool programs. Can the rest of the nation look to Oklahoma as a model for universal pre-k?
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American RadioWorks - eBay for Professors
Ever heard of the self-employed college professor? Thanks to the efforts of the for-profit education company Straighter Line, some professors will now be able to go into business for themselves and set the price on how much their teaching is worth.
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American RadioWorks - School Safety
According to the U.S. Department of Education, schools are actually safer than they've been in decades - which makes the recent shootings in Newtown, Connecticut all the more shocking. One expert says that a proper security plan is crucial for avoiding violent crime in school and that well-trained school-resource police officers must be part of that plan.
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American RadioWorks - Popularity
It turns out being popular in high school could actually be important later in life. New research from the University of Chicago suggests there's a correlation between the size of a person's social network in high school and the money he or she earns as an adult.
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American RadioWorks - Diverse Schools
In the 1960s "white flight" sent many middle-class families from the cities to suburbs out of fear that the quality of schools and living conditions were in decline. But today more and more middle- and upper-middle income urbanites of all colors are choosing to raise families in the city - and that means finding schools for their kids.
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American RadioWorks - Goodbye to Cursive
Since handwriting is becoming less important in modern life, teaching cursive is going out of style in American schools. But a handful of states are choosing to include cursive writing requirements in their new curriculum standards. Proponents argue that cursive handwriting emphasizes fine motor coordination and visual skills.
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American RadioWorks - The Real Digital Divide
For a long time it was assumed that a "digital divide" existed between rich kids and poor kids. But emerging research says kids from all income backgrounds are going online in large numbers - it's the way they're using the Internet that could make the difference in their success in school and life.
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American RadioWorks - Tuition by Major
Florida governor Rick Scott is proposing a tiered pricing plan for the state's colleges and universities that would cut tuition for majors in high-demand fields like science and engineering but charge more for majors in lower-demand subjects such as English and history. One economist says states should encourage students to go into professions that employers consider valuable, but he argues the tiered tuition proposal in Florida is the wrong approach.
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American RadioWorks - The Military and the GED
The GED test was created to help returning World War Two veterans who hadn't graduated from high school have an easier path to higher education and the workforce. But today the United States military does not believe GED holders are generally as qualified candidates for service as traditional high school graduates.
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American RadioWorks - Crack Cocaine and Education
From the 1960s to the 1980s the educational achievement gap between blacks and whites was shrinking. But around 1990 high school graduation rates for blacks began to drop. A new study suggests that the emergence of the crack cocaine market in the 1980s fueled this downward trend.
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American RadioWorks - University of Phoenix Slims Down
The University of Phoenix is closing 115 of its campuses and learning centers and laying off about 800 employees. This decision is in response to both dramatic drops in enrollment in recent years, and new competition from traditional colleges and universities going online. What does this mean for the future of for-profit education?
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American RadioWorks - Parent Loan Debt
When parents borrow money to pay for their children to go to college, they don't often expect to be repaying their loans for the rest of their lives. But a new investigation reveals that many of the federal government's Parent PLUS loans are going to families who often don't have the ability to repay them.
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American RadioWorks - Elite Online Ed
The Minerva Project is billing itself as the world's first "elite" online university. Though still in development, its founder Ben Nelson promises it will be comparable to places like Harvard and Yale at a fraction of the cost.
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American RadioWorks - Tuition Discount
Last month, Concordia University in St. Paul, Minn. announced plans to make a dramatic cut in tuition for the 2013-2014 school year. The sticker price for Concordia's tuition will drop from $29,700 to $19,700 a year. A $10,000 cut in tuition sounds dramatic but economist Sandy Baum says the actual amount students pay may not change all that much.
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American RadioWorks - Re-Learning How to Write
Some educators believe that honing analytical writing skills will improve student learning across disciplines. In an article in this month's Atlantic, journalist Peg Tyre looks one failing high school whose principal tried to improve student learning by focusing intensively on writing skills in every classroom - whether it be U.S. history or cell biology.
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American RadioWorks - Hidden Power of Character
For years, educators have assumed that teaching students cognitive skills like reading and math was the key to preparing them for successful lives. But new research is finding that so-called "non-cognitive" skills like self-control, persistence and curiosity may be just as important when it comes to helping children succeed.
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American RadioWorks - Keyboard College
Digital technologies and the Internet are changing how many Americans go to college. From online learning to simulation programs to smart-machine mentors, the 21st-century student will be taught in fundamentally new ways. In this documentary, Stephen Smith asks whether these innovations can help more people get access to higher education and bring down the cost of college without sacrificing learning.
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American RadioWorks - The Rise of Phoenix
For-profit colleges are big players in higher education. More than one in ten college students attends a for-profit. The rapid rise of these career-oriented schools has provoked heated debate about the costs, quality and purpose of higher education. In this documentary, correspondent Emily Hanford examines the history and influence of the University of Phoenix, one of the nation's largest colleges, and explores how Phoenix and other for-profits are shaping the future of higher education.
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American RadioWorks - Grit, Luck and Money
Only 9 percent of low-income college students complete a bachelor's degree by age 24. Why are so many students quitting, and what leads a few to beat the odds and make it through? In this documentary American RadioWorks correspondent Emily Hanford introduces us to young people trying to break into the middle class, teachers trying to increase their chances and researchers investigating the nature of persistence.
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American RadioWorks - Economic Advantage of College
Since the Great Recession began in 2008 many college graduates and their families have been wondering: what good is an education if you can't get a job? A new report finds that even though the job market is still weak, it's much better for college graduates than for those with just a high school degree.
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American RadioWorks - Mississippi's Troubled Schools
Mississippi has highest rate of childhood poverty of any state in the country. Research suggests that high-quality early childhood education can have a big impact on a child's future well being. But Mississippi is one of a handful of states that do not fund any preschool programs. The Hechinger Report's Liz Willen discusses her recent reporting on efforts to improve Mississippi's struggling schools.
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American RadioWorks - The Irreplaceables
A new report claims that both the best and the worst teachers are leaving urban school districts at similar rates. It argues that the best teachers are "irreplaceable" - as in, so good that they're nearly impossible to replace - and that school districts are taking for granted these high-performing teachers and not giving them enough reason to stay in their jobs.
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American RadioWorks - Report on For Profits
This week, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and the Workforce released a report that was very critical of for-profit colleges and universities. ARW Correspondent Emily Hanford has been working on a documentary that looks at the meteoric rise of the for-profit college industry in this country. We hear excerpts from interviews with two for-profit college insiders.
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American RadioWorks - MOOCs are Trending
Massively Open Online Courses or MOOCS seem to be all the rage in elite higher education. Stanford, MIT, Harvard and others are all bringing selected course offerings online to the public for free. Is this just a fad or are we all going to be Ivy League-educated someday?
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American RadioWorks - College in the New Economy
At a conference earlier this year, APM economics editor Chris Farrell spoke before a group of college admissions officers, enrollment managers and financial aid professionals. He gave his take on how the Great Recession impacted higher education and how paying for college will change in the "new" economy.
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American RadioWorks - Making it Through College
Only 9 percent of low-income students complete a bachelor's degree by age 24. Why are so many students quitting college, and what leads a few to beat the odds and make it through? ARW correspondent Emily Hanford recently sat down with the founder of a charter school network in Houston that's trying to get low-income students "to and through" four-year colleges.
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American RadioWorks - Boys and Girls
Do boys and girls learn differently? According to the National Association for Single-Sex Public Education, boys and girls show significant differences in brain development and therefore should be educated separately. But some groups worry that this belief in gender learning differences is unfounded and violates federal law.
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American RadioWorks - The Art of Medical Education
A prestigious medical school is trying an unusual way to teach young doctors to be more observant. ARW assistant producer Suzanne Pekow reports.
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American RadioWorks - Elite College for All
Coursera is a new consortium of top colleges and universities that have joined together to offer what's known as Massively Open Online Courses or MOOCs. Anyone can register for the classes from schools like Princeton, Stanford and Penn. The only catch: you won't be offered any degree when you're done.
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American RadioWorks - Three-Year Degree
As the cost of tuition increases faster than the rate of inflation, condensing a bachelor's degree down to three years may be an attractive option for some students. But will students have to sacrifice a valuable part of the college experience in order to finish on time?
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American RadioWorks - College Possible
The road to college starts for many kids as early as middle school as they decide what courses they're going to take in high school. But for students whose parents aren't college-educated, the many steps on the path to higher education may not come naturally.
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American RadioWorks - College Study Time
Are college students learning less than they used to? Some recent, high-profile studies suggest the answer is yes. One reason may be how much - or how little - studying today's college students do.
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American RadioWorks - Housing Boom and College Choice
A new study finds that lower- and middle-class families whose housing value increased during the boom of the late '90s and early 2000s sent their children to expensive colleges they otherwise couldn't afford.
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American RadioWorks - Open Textbooks
The average college student spends upwards of $1,000 a year on textbooks. The University of Minnesota recently announced a project to find and curate the best open-source materials on the web, to help professors and students make thrifty choices in a time of rising college costs.
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American RadioWorks - Virtual Tutor
The University of Phoenix's parent corporation, Apollo Group, recently bought Carnegie Learning - a company that developed something called a "cognitive tutor" to help students learn math and other subjects. The cognitive tutor uses adaptive learning technology to help tailor lessons to the needs of individual students.
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American RadioWorks - Examining Mega Foundations
The president of one of the nation's largest philanthropies joins us to address recent critiques that foundations are playing too big a role in setting higher education policy.
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American RadioWorks - Advocacy Philanthropy
A new research paper focuses on the so-called "advocacy philanthropy" of the two largest higher education grant-makers in this country.
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American RadioWorks - Flipping the Classroom
This week we talk to a teacher who's helping lead the "flipped" classroom movement. Instead of spending class time lecturing at a podium, Jonathan Bergmann videotapes lessons for students to watch outside of class. He spends classroom time doing more interactive, hands-on activities.
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American RadioWorks - College for All
The United States has the highest college dropout rate of any industrialized nation, at 40 percent. In a commentary for the Chronicle of Higher Education, economist Alex Tabarrok argues that rather than pushing for everyone to go to college, we should concentrate on providing opportunities for those who decide not to go.
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American RadioWorks - Income Achievement Gap
One of the fundamental goals of modern education is to encourage upward social mobility. But some critics say that colleges are reinforcing, rather than dissolving, the barriers between social classes.
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American RadioWorks - Making Textbooks Cheaper
As most college students know, textbooks are not cheap. Now, champions of the "open access" movement are working to make digital textbooks free - or at least heavily discounted to students.
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American RadioWorks - Being a Phoenix
One in ten college students goes to a for-profit college. Schools like the University of Phoenix have been scrutinized for aggressive recruiting and other questionable practices. But many students say the University of Phoenix offered them a kind of education they couldn't get anywhere else.
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American RadioWorks - White House Video Gamer
President Barack Obama has been critical of the amount of time children and families spend playing video games when they could be doing more enriching things like reading books together. But the Obama administration may have changed its tune a little bit on gaming. The White House recently hired a full-time video game researcher in its office of Science and Technology Policy.
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American RadioWorks - Are You Gritty Enough For College?
Why do some students drop out of college, while others persist? Researchers think it may have something to do with a person's level of "grit" and are trying to figure out whether this trait can be taught to others.
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American RadioWorks - Indian Higher Ed
India is one of the fastest-growing countries in the world, and with about a third of its population under the age of 14, India will soon see a surge in working-age adults. That's why the government there is leading an ambitious effort to expand higher education institutions both on-ground and online.
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American RadioWorks - Manufacturing Jobs
The 2012 presidential candidates have all stressed the need to bring manufacturing jobs "back" to the United States from overseas. While it's true that the United States has lost more than five million manufacturing jobs in the past decade due to foreign competition and productivity gains, there are also a lot of manufacturing jobs still here in America - and many of those jobs are going unfilled.
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American RadioWorks - Hyrbrid Campuses
This week, reporting from Stephen Smith's upcoming documentary on how technology is changing higher education. Northeastern University President Joseph Aoun discusses why the physical boundaries of the traditional college campus becoming less relevant to learning.
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American RadioWorks - For-Profits
For-profit universities have come under fire in recent years because of questionable practices at some institutions. But today, schools like the University of Phoenix, DeVry and others are working hard to transform their images. Correspondent Emily Hanford interviewed Kaplan University's Peter Smith for an upcoming documentary that tracks the rise of the for-profit higher education industry.
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American RadioWorks - Getting Through College
Our correspondent Emily Hanford produced a documentary last fall called "Some College, No Degree" about the challenges people face getting back to college once they quit. Now she's working on a new documentary that looks at the college completion question from a different angle.
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American RadioWorks - Teaching Online
In some financially struggling districts, parents are opting for virtual classrooms as an alternative to troubled bricks-and-mortar schools. The quality of online schooling and online teaching varies, but there are standouts. We talk to Online Teacher of the Year Kristin Kipp about what it takes to thrive in a virtual school.
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American RadioWorks - King's Last March
As a belated tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, here is an encore presentation of our 2008 documentary, "King's Last March." Over 40 years after Dr. King's assassination, he remains one of the most vivid symbols of hope for racial unity in America. But that's not the way he was viewed in the last year of his life.
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American RadioWorks - The State of Online Education
Online coursework was once considered an experimental alternative to on-ground classes, but it's quickly becoming a part of the mainstream. Online courses make it possible for colleges and universities to stay within their shrinking budgets, and for busy working adults to go to school anywhere, anytime. As of last fall, about a third of all American college students were enrolled in at least one course online.
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American RadioWorks - Losing the Lecture
This week, we present a story that American RadioWorks correspondent Emily Hanford recently did for NPR news. It looks at what's wrong with the traditional lecture, and what some physicists are doing to get rid of it.
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American RadioWorks - The Year in Education News
What were the top education stories of 2011? The Wall Street Journal's Stephanie Banchero joins us to discuss the stories she thinks had the biggest impact this year.
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American RadioWorks - Excellent Community Colleges
In the coming decade, most new jobs will require a college education. Community colleges are expected to play a big role in helping Americans get those jobs. Nearly half of all college students go to community colleges but only a third of them graduate.
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American RadioWorks - White House and College Access
President Barack Obama recently called college leaders to the White House to talk about making college more accessible and affordable for all Americans. Jamie Merisotis was among the attendees. He is president of Lumina Foundation, one of the most influential foundations in the higher education sector.
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American RadioWorks - Organizing Schools to Help Students
When it comes to education reform, the most controversial ideas usually generate the most attention, but these flashy efforts are often hard to measure and expensive to do. The authors of a new report argue that there are less glamorous, more common-sense school reforms that benefit students by changing the way schools are organized.
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American RadioWorks - Saving Cooper Union
Going to college for free may sound like a fantasy, but Cooper Union in New York City has offered free tuition to its students since its founding in 1859. Now Cooper Union is facing a serious budget deficit and its trustees are considering charging tuition to keep the institution solvent.
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American RadioWorks - Kindergarten Tech
The kindergarten classroom is traditionally a place where youngsters get to experiment with hands-on learning tools like finger paints and building blocks. But with budget-cutting at public schools forcing teachers to take on larger class sizes, more schools are experimenting with adding computer-enhanced lessons for early learners.
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American RadioWorks - Importing Chinese Students
In contrast to the United States and Europe, China's economy is thriving. As the competition gets tougher for entrance into China's universities, more middle-class families are sending their children to college out of the country, which has led to a booming college placement industry in China. Recent investigations revealed a pattern of fraud and financial kickbacks at one such agency.
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American RadioWorks - Occupy Wall Street and Student Debt
The Occupy Wall Street movement is spreading to college campuses, where students are protesting rising tuition costs and poor job prospects in today's economy. One expert suggests cutting costs and streamlining college course offerings might produce graduates with more earning potential in the long term.
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American RadioWorks - Academic High Flyers
A recent study asked how efforts to bring up the bottom in public schools are affecting the nation's strongest students. It found that students at the top are not soaring as high as they could be.
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American RadioWorks - School Libraries
With the rise of Internet search engines and the increasing digitization of textbooks, you might think the physical space of a library doesn't have a place in the future of American schools. But a national group of school librarians met this week in Minneapolis and they argue that school libraries are essential to academic success.
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American RadioWorks - Efficiencies on Campus
Many corporations are demanding cheaper, faster and more efficient work from their employees. Now that bottom-line kind of thinking is coming to higher education. Marketplace reporter Amy Scott recently reported on two initiatives to reign in spending on college campuses and to make the cost of college more affordable.
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American RadioWorks - Achievement Gap Mania
Since the No Child Left Behind Act went into effect in 2002, public school reforms have focused almost exclusively on trying to close the "achievement gap" between children from poor and minority families and children from higher income families. But education scholar Rick Hess argues that targeting only the lowest-performing students is hurting higher-performing students while harming the entire education system.
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American RadioWorks - Leadership Prep
To get hired in an ultra-competitive job market, you need the right combination of education, skills and experience. Whether you're at the executive or entry level, figuring out that perfect combination can be a mystery. This week on the podcast, we turn to a human resources industry veteran who's an expert at identifying candidates with the potential to be great leaders.
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American RadioWorks - Failure Equals Success
To do well in school, and in life, students need more than book smarts. They need other key character traits, like grit, self-control, curiosity and optimism. But how do students learn these character traits? And can they - should they - be taught in school? New York Times Magazine contributing writer Paul Tough joins us to talk about his recent cover story, "What if the Secret to Success is Failure?"
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American RadioWorks - College Rankings
U.S. News & World Report's 2012 national college and university rankings came out this week. Annual lists like these are supposed to help people compare many schools at a glance. But one college president recently criticized these rankings, saying those who compile such lists ignore an important factor when calculating the merits of a given school: the socioeconomic diversity of its student body.
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American RadioWorks - Who Needs an English Major?
The most popular college major in America these days is business. Some students think it doesn't pay to study philosophy or history. But advocates of liberal arts programs say that a healthy democracy depends on citizens with a broad and deep education. In this third and final program in our Tomorrow's College Series, Stephen Smith examines how a form of higher learning unique to the United States is responding to the demands of the 21st century.
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American RadioWorks - Don't Lecture Me
The second documentary in our Tomorrow's College series: "Don't Lecture Me: Rethinking the Way College Students Learn." In an increasingly competitive global economy the best jobs go to highly skilled workers who can think well and learn fast. In this program, American RadioWorks producer Emily Hanford explores how traditional approaches to teaching are failing to provide many college students with the knowledge they need.
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American RadioWorks - Some College, No Degree
The first of three new documentaries in the Tomorrow's College series: "Some College, No Degree: Why So Many Americans Drop Out of College, and What to Do about It." In 1970, only 26 percent of middle-class workers had any education beyond high school. Today, nearly 60 percent of all jobs in the U.S. economy require higher education. Economists believe that those without a post-secondary degree are quickly falling out of the American middle class. This hour-long program examines that dilemma.
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American RadioWorks - Group Learning
By the time students get to college, they're expected to be proficient at learning independently, without the support of a group. But at the University of Minnesota-Rochester, group work is a core part of the curriculum. ARW producer Emily Hanford discusses how this emerging program is veering away from the traditional lecture format in an effort to better suit the needs of the modern college student.
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American RadioWorks - Is a College Degree Worth It?
Getting a college degree is more expensive than ever. Each year, the sticker price goes up about six percent - about twice the rate of inflation. The cost of college is causing some to wonder if a college degree is even worth it. On this week's podcast, Marketplace economics correspondent Chris Farrell explains why a college education is actually more valuable than ever.
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American RadioWorks - The Seven Biggest Myths About...
For many parents, the prospect of paying for a child's college education is daunting. A college degree today costs ten times what it did fifty years ago. In this podcast, we clear up some of the biggest misconceptions about paying for college with Carol Stack, co-author of The Financial Aid Handbook: Getting the Education You Want for the Price You Can Afford.
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American RadioWorks - Public University Cuts
Higher education blogger Alex Friedrich examines how cuts in state funding to the nation's public colleges and universities are affecting students. He'll also describe the de facto privatization of the public education system.
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American RadioWorks - Scrutiny for Schools on Military...
A new investigation reveals that children at military bases worldwide often attend school in substandard and deteriorating buildings even as their parents serve their country. We speak with reporter Kristen Lombardi who wrote the report for iWatch News.
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American RadioWorks - Put to the Test
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently reignited the debate over the fate of the federal No Child Left Behind law, or NCLB. One of the much-maligned tools of NCLB is standardized testing. In 2007 American RadioWorks looked at the pressures standardized tests put on students and teachers at one North Carolina school. This week on the podcast: an encore presentation of "Put to the Test."
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American RadioWorks - Mathophobics
If figuring out the tip at a restaurant makes you break a sweat, you may suffer from math anxiety. Today on the podcast, we ask a psychologist why so many Americans think they're bad at math and how this anxiety might be prevented in schools.
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American RadioWorks - Challenging the Liberal Arts
Many schools that offer degrees in the liberal arts and sciences are adapting the ways they teach to meet the demands of the 21st century. In September, American RadioWorks will premier a documentary called "Who Needs and English Major?" This week on the podcast we'll preview one of the schools that will be featured in the documentary: Berea College in Eastern Kentucky.
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American RadioWorks - Skills to Pay the Bills
This week we continue with our series on the value of a college degree. ARW Producer Emily Hanford shares excerpts of her interview with Tony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.
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American RadioWorks - How College Degrees Pay
ARW producer Emily Hanford is working on a documentary called "Some College, No Degree: Why So Many Americans Drop out of College, and What to Do About It." She recently interviewed two economists who have done a lot of research on the value of college degrees. Over the next two weeks on the podcast, Emily Hanford will play some excerpts from those interviews.
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American RadioWorks - Turning Around a School from Within
When a charter school replaces a traditional public school, there's often a house cleaning of existing teachers, administrators and even students. But Green Dot, a non-profit charter-school management organization based in Los Angeles, works with existing teachers' unions when it tries to turn around failing schools. This week we speak with the author of a new book that documents a Green Dot turnaround in one of L.A.'s toughest neighborhoods.
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American RadioWorks - Arts Majors Talk About Their...
A new survey of college graduates indicates that the myth of the "starving artist" might be just that - a myth. The study shows that a majority of art majors end up being very satisfied with their careers, whether they work in the field they studied or not. American RadioWorks conducted its own informal survey of arts graduates and we share some of the responses on this week's podcast.
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American RadioWorks - Battling the Summer Slide
The countdown to summer vacation has begun in many schools across the country. Traditionally, summer break is a time for students and teachers to leave the classroom behind for three months. But research shows that being idle for an extended period of time can cause students to fall behind academically. This week we discuss how summer break can leave lower-income students at disadvantage during the school year.
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American RadioWorks - Preschool, Day Care, Both?
Research points to a strong correlation between high-quality preschool and success later in life. But not everyone agrees that childcare needs to have an educational component. A leader in the field discusses how standards for early education are changing the way we think about daycare.
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American RadioWorks - Academically Adrift?
Is a college degree enough? ARW Producer Emily Hanford interviews Richard Arum, one of the authors of a new book that argues college students today are not being challenged academically, and that they're not graduating with the skills necessary to make them civically engaged adults.
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American RadioWorks - Learning from Abroad
In the early part of the twentieth century, Americans were considered international leaders in education performance and innovation. Today, we consistently receive mediocre scores on the Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA - an international achievement test given to 15-year-olds. This week on the podcast: a PISA expert describes lessons the United States can learn from better-performing education systems.
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American RadioWorks - The Future of No Child Left Behind
The Obama administration wants big changes in the No Child Left Behind Act. This week on the podcast, we'll get one view of what can be done to make No Child Left Behind more effective. Joining us is Jack Jennings, President and CEO of the Center on Education Policy.
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American RadioWorks - College Costs Redux
We continue our discussion of why college tuitions keep going up. Host Stephen Smith interviewed the authors of "Why Does College Cost so Much?" recently on Minnesota Public Radio. Here are excerpts from their conversation.
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American RadioWorks - Understanding College Costs
College tuitions have been rising at well above the rate of inflation for decades now, and no one really seems to know why. But APM Economics Editor Chris Farrell reviews a new book that gets to the bottom of this question. It's called "Why Does College Cost So Much?"
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American RadioWorks - Can Tests Get Better?
Last week on the podcast, we talked to a USA Today reporter who looked into a national pattern of suspicious spikes in standardized test scores and accusations of falsified test data. This week, we ask: Is there a better way to evaluate students and teachers?
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American RadioWorks - Test Score Anomalies
When a poorly-performing classroom or school suddenly shows astronomical growth in standardized test scores, do we applaud or investigate? USA Today looked into test-score anomalies across the country and found a number of cases where K-12 test scores surged, then retreated in following years - an indicator that something fishy may have gone on with the tests.
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American RadioWorks - Some College
There are 37 million Americans who have some college credits but no degree - that's about 22 percent of the population. Experts say the only way to increase the number of college graduates in the United States is to get people who have dropped out of college to go back.
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American RadioWorks - The Bee Eater
Former Washington, D.C. school chancellor Michelle Rhee had a polarizing effect on educators and parents - she was either loved or hated for her tough-as-nails approach to hiring and firing teachers. Rhee's time as chancellor is captured in a new book by veteran education reporter Richard Whitmire, who says her controversial reforms are now being copied by urban districts across the nation.
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American RadioWorks - Liberal Arts
In a down economy, is it harder to prove the relevance of a liberal arts education? Macalester College President Brian Rosenberg says now, more than ever, employers are looking for college graduates with well-rounded backgrounds to be the leaders of tomorrow.
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American RadioWorks - Testing Teachers Wins EWA Award
We found out this week that our documentary 'Testing Teachers' won a first place award from the Education Writers Association. So to celebrate, this week's podcast is an encore presentation the documentary, which asks the question 'What makes a good teacher good?'
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American RadioWorks - Following the Stimulus Money
Two years ago, the federal government made the biggest, one-time investment in public schools in the nation's history. Nearly $100 billion dollars in education-stimulus money was doled out to the states as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Now a team of journalists is asking: How was the money spent and is it helping our schools?
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American RadioWorks - Back of the Bus
Equal access to transportation was once a central issue of the civil rights movement. But today, disparities still persist. In a collaboration with Transportation Nation and WNYC, ARW presents 'Back of the Bus: Mass Transit, Race and Inequality.'
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American RadioWorks - State of Siege
Mississippi occupies a dramatic place in the history of America's struggle for racial equality. No state in the South was more resistant to integration, and no state was more organized in its opposition to civil rights.
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American RadioWorks - Say it Loud
This month, we're taking a break from our education coverage to bring you a series of documentaries about race in America. This week: a look back at the last 50 years of black history through stirring, historically important speeches by African Americans from across the political spectrum. Get ready for 'Say it Loud: Great Speeches on Civil Rights and African American Identity.'
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American RadioWorks - An Imperfect Revolution
Over the past few months, we've brought you conversations about how children learn to read, the college debt crisis, the nature of creativity and more. Talking about education is still part of the plan. But this week, and throughout February, we'll be focusing on the history of race in America - starting with this 2007 documentary that looks back at the evolution of school desegregation.
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American RadioWorks - Reading
Learning to read is critical step in a child's elementary school education. But to actually understand what they read on the page requires more than just a basic ability to string letters and words together.
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American RadioWorks - Creativity
Some experts say it�s time we started thinking of creativity as a necessary skill - not just a trait - in all fields. And that we start teaching it in school.
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American RadioWorks - College Debt Crisis
It's a new year, and the news from Wall Street suggests the recession is slowly loosening its grip on the American economy. Yet some fear student loan debt could be the next major jolt to our financial system.
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American RadioWorks - Education Roundup
As the year 2010 comes to a close we look back at the biggest stories in education with the Hechinger Report's Richard Lee Colvin.
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American RadioWorks - The Bilingual Brain
It was once believed that kids who learn two languages at once are somehow confused or slowed down by mastering more than one tongue. More recent research suggests that growing up bilingual actually boosts a child's cognitive capacity.
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American RadioWorks - The Battle Over Homework
Kids have always complained about homework. But a new film argues that homework and other academic pressures have reached a new level � and America's schoolchildren are suffering. We take a look at some research that pinpoints exactly how much is too much when it comes to homework.
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American RadioWorks - Modern Classrooms
The physical layout of classrooms hasn't varied much since the days of the one-room schoolhouse. Yet so much about our schools has changed. What should modern classrooms look like in order to meet the needs of 21st century students?
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American RadioWorks - New Tests
Part two of our look at standardized testing. Critics of traditional school assessments argue that they were never meant to be the primary tool used in evaluating students and teachers. By the fall of 2014, the way America evaluates public schools could be radically different.
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American RadioWorks - Evaluating School Evaluations
Schools are widely criticized for limiting what and how they teach so that students score higher on standardized tests. Why does testing matter? Are traditional assessments still effective in measuring school performance?
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American RadioWorks - Challenging Charters
Charter schools have been touted as a way to help save America's struggling public education system. But recent studies and news reports raise questions about how charter schools handle students who don't keep up with the rigorous expectations at the schools.
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American RadioWorks - Republican Politics and Education
The 2010 election results have triggered fears in the education world. With more Republicans in power, budget cuts may be looming at both state and federal levels. Will belt-tightening be bad for schools?
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American RadioWorks - Stocks in the Future
Kids at a Baltimore school are learning about the stock market using real money - and they get to keep the profits. It's part of a program designed to teach financial literacy and entice inner-city children to stay in school. But experts disagree over whether it's effective - and ethical - to pay kids to learn.
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American RadioWorks - Poor Students Thrive in Rich...
A recent study by the Century Foundation found that poor children do better when they go to school with wealthier children. The study focused on one county in Maryland, but could influence national education reform.
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American RadioWorks - When Students Fail
Schools are developing new ways to judge teachers on how well their students learn. Time was when the responsibility for student achievement fell mostly on the students.
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American RadioWorks - How Teachers Learn
How do public school teachers learn to be good at what they do? American RadioWorks producer Emily Hanford explains.
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American RadioWorks - Great Teachers
Education reformers are calling for big changes in how teachers are trained and evaluated. In this discussion program, teachers, administrators, parents and students discuss what makes a good teacher.
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American RadioWorks - None of Us Were Like This Before
The suicide rate of U.S. troops returning home is rising. We talk with Joshua Phillips, author of None of Us Were Like This Before, about the psychological impact of torture on the American soldiers who committed it.
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American RadioWorks - Nobel Lecture by Toni Morrison
Say it Loud: Great Speeches on Civil Rights and African American Identity, is out in bookstores. This week we hear from one of the featured speakers, Nobel prize winner Toni Morrison.
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American RadioWorks - A Promise of Justice
Ten years ago, ARW investigated the massacre of 41 civilians in the Kosovo village of Cuska. This week, nine men were indicted for the killings.
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American RadioWorks - The Little Rick Nine
One of the Little Rock Nine, the group of black students that desegregated public high schools in Arkansas in 1957, died this week. Today we mark the passing of Jefferson Thomas by looking at that moment in America's Civil Rights history.
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American RadioWorks - Poor Saving
Americans are currently saving about 6 percent of their income. However, it's not just middle and upper-income Americans doing so. With the help of government funding, some of this nation's poorest citizens are saving too.
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American RadioWorks - Testing Teachers
Teachers matter. A lot. Studies show that students with the best teachers learn three times as much as students with the worst teachers. Researchers say the achievement gap between poor children and their higher-income peers could disappear if poor kids got better teachers.
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American RadioWorks - Summer Jobs
As the weak economy continues to make jobs scarce, younger, inexperienced workers are finding it difficult to land that mainstay of entry-level employment - the summer job.
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American RadioWorks - A New Foreclosure Crisis
Producer Laurie Stern describes the new wave of foreclosures - not caused by sub-prime loans, but as a result of unemployment due to the recession.
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American RadioWorks - The New Frugality
Economics Editor Chris Farrell argues that a coming economic recovery will not bring with it a return to unsustainable excesses in consumption.
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American RadioWorks - The Psychology of Saving Energy
Some scientists argue that behavioral science must play a substantial role in dealing with climate change. People are motivated by saving money, but financial incentives alone may not be enough to get people to change their behavior.
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American RadioWorks - Five Farms
John Biewen talks about his latest documentary on family farming in the United States.
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American RadioWorks - John Biewen
John Biewen, director of the audio program at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, recently edited Reality Radio: Telling True Stories in Sound, a book of essays by leading audio documentary makers.
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American RadioWorks - Introduction to State of Siege
ARW is working on a new documentary called State of Siege - Mississippi Whites and the Civil Rights Movement. The program is about the spectrum of white responses to the civil rights movement in Mississippi and how - for a time - extremists ran the state.
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American RadioWorks - Coal
Most climate scientists agree the earth's climate is changing and human activities are the cause. The biggest contributor to heat-trapping greenhouse gases is electricity production, and the fuel we're burning most to make electricity is coal.
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American RadioWorks - The Great Textbook War
What should children learn in school? It's a question that's stirred debate for decades, and in 1974 it led to violent protests in West Virginia. Schools were hit by dynamite, buses were riddled with bullets, and coal mines were shut down. The fight was over a new set of textbooks.
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American RadioWorks - War on Poverty
From the heady optimism of the Great Society to the trauma of the Great Recession, questions remain about what government should do to help the nearly 40 million Americans who are poor.
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American RadioWorks - Sebastian Junger
Stephen Smith interviews journalist and best-selling author Sebastian Junger who spent fifteen months shadowing a platoon of American soldiers in eastern Afghanistan.
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American RadioWorks - Reauthorization of No Child Left...
Stephen Smith talks with education producer Emily Handford about how No Child Left Behind might change as Congress considers its reauthorizations.
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American RadioWorks - Put to the Test
This week, the U.S. Senate concluded hearings on reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, and everyone seems to agree the law needs big changes. What is No Child Left Behind, and how has it changed education?
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American RadioWorks - The Assassination of Martin Luther...
Stephen Smith interviews Hampton Sides, author of Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr.
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American RadioWorks - James Forman, Jr.
James Forman, Jr. was born into the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. His parents were both members of the organization. His father, James Forman, Sr., was SNCC's executive secretary during the early years of the organization and was one of the freedom movement's most influential leaders.
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American RadioWorks - Taylor Branch
Journalist and historian Taylor Branch has written extensively about the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and civil rights in his trilogy of books that focus on Martin Luther King and his role in the movement. Branch won the Pulitzer prize for Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63. Taylor Branch spoke at the 50th anniversary conference on the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
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American RadioWorks - Clayborn Carson
Prominent Civil Rights historian Clayborn Carson spoke at the 50th anniversary conference of SNCC, the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, about pivotal moments in the struggle for equality.
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American RadioWorks - Bernice Johnson Reagon
Bernice Johnson Reagon - singer, scholar, composer, activist and oral historian - was a field secretary for SNCC, the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, and a member of the Freedom Singers, a group of SNCC musicians who raised money for civil rights work in the 1960. In today's podcast, Reagon speaks at the 50th anniversary reunion of SNCC at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina.
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American RadioWorks - Diane Ravitch on Education Reform
Education scholar Diane Ravitch argues that the major education reforms of the past ten years are killing the American public education system.
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American RadioWorks - Education Reform in D.C.
Michelle Rhee, chancellor of public schools in Washington D.C., made big education news this week by announcing a new contract proposal that D.C. has finally negotiated with the leaders of its teachers' union.
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American RadioWorks - Remembering Jim Crow
For much of the 20th century, African Americans in the South were barred from the voting booth, sent to the back of the bus, and walled off from many of the rights they deserved as American citizens. Until well into the 1960s, segregation was legal.
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American RadioWorks - Interview with Deborah Amos
Deborah Amos is a foreign correspondent for National Public Radio, and former host of American RadioWorks. She spent a decade working in television news and has won some of journalism's most prestigious awards. Amos is the author of four books. Her latest is titled, Eclipse of the Sunnis: Power, Exile and Upheaval in the Middle East.
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American RadioWorks - The Earned Income Tax Credit
Taxes are the fuel that keeps our government running, but the tax code is also a system of rewards and incentives - a way of trying to encourage behaviors that Congress wants the rest of us to adopt. For Americans at the bottom of the economic ladder, one of the primary incentives is something called the Earned Income Tax Credit.
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American RadioWorks - Generational Poverty
Russell Brockman grew up in Chicago, starting out life in a poor family, living in a low-income neighborhood with bad schools and few role models, stuck in poverty that perpetuates itself, generation after generation, just like some 40 million people today in the United States.
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American RadioWorks - Interview with Trey Kay
Host Stephen Smith speaks with independent producer Trey Kay about his documentary The Great Textbook War.
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American RadioWorks - The Great Textbook War
Violent protests erupted in 1974 in Kanawha County, W.Va., when the Kanawha County school board received recommendations for new textbooks to be used in elementary schools. The new books became a lightning rod for the war between liberal and conservative values in this country. It was a culture war not unlike those we still see today.
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American RadioWorks - Say it Loud - Part 2
Say it Loud, the upcoming ARW documentary, focuses on late-20th century African American speech. This week, we hear different arguments about race and equality in America.
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American RadioWorks - Say it Loud
ARW's upcoming documentary, Say it Loud, focuses on African American speech during the second half of the 20th century, when African Americans were debating the best ways to fight for equality.
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American RadioWorks - Obama's Plan for Education
President Obama's proposed budget contains big increases in education spending. Most of the new money would go to school districts that are willing to compete for funds by showing that they're trying out new and different ways to improve student performance. It's a big change from the No Child Left Behind law of the past decade.
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American RadioWorks - Who Killed Sergeant Gray?
Sergeant Adam Gray made it home from Iraq only to die in his barracks. Investigating his death, American RadioWorks pieces together a story of soldiers suffering psychological scars - because they abused Iraqi prisoners.
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American RadioWorks - A Good Teacher
We all probably had a favorite teacher or two growing up, but what was it about those teachers that made them great? And how do teachers improve their skills to most effectively help students learn?
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American RadioWorks - Evaluating Teachers
Research shows that when it comes to student achievement, teachers matter most. But what makes a good teacher? And how do we know who the great teachers are?
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American RadioWorks - The New Frugality
ARW Economics Correspondent Chris Farrell talks about his new book - The New Frugality: How to Consume Less, Save More and Live Better.
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American RadioWorks - Moses and the American Story
Author Bruce Feiler talks about a man whose influence on American history can be found everywhere.
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American RadioWorks - Roger's Christmas Story
Roger was put into foster care when he was eleven years old and spent four years in and out of foster homes, group homes and relatives' homes. Most teens in foster care never get adopted. Still, Roger never gave up faith that he would find a family.
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American RadioWorks - Community College Professors
Education producer Emily Hanford talks with community college professors about why they teach at community college.
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American RadioWorks - Day of Infamy on the Radio
Host Stephen Smith offers a sense of how the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor unfolded for most Americans on that day of infamy. Radio was mass medium of the day, and radio brought the news to presidents, taxi drivers, and dairy farmers alike.
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American RadioWorks - Mind the Gap: Why Good Schools Are...
Independent producer Nancy Solomon brings us Mind the Gap: Why Good Schools Are Failing Black Students.
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American RadioWorks - The Making of Divorced Kid
Stephen Smiths talks with Sasha Aslanian, producer of Divorced Kid, a documentary about the 1970s divorce revolution and what it can teach us about how to improve divorce for kids today.
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American RadioWorks - Divorced Kid
America's divorce rate soared in the 1970s. Thirty years later, kids who grew up in the divorce revolution look back at that experience, and describe how it shaped them as adults. The 1970s also offered some lessons on how to improve divorce for kids today.
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American RadioWorks - Workplace U (full documentary)
We know that a good education can be the ticket to a good job. But for many Americans, conventional school isn't working. They don't make it through high school or don't learn enough to prepare them for good jobs. A new movement turns conventional wisdom on its head, and makes a job the ticket to an education. The idea is to turn workplaces into classrooms and marginal students into productive workers.
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American RadioWorks - Rising by Degrees (full...
The United States is facing a dramatic demographic challenge: Young Latinos are the fastest-growing segment of the population, and they are the least likely to graduate from college. Experts say the future of the American economy is at stake, because higher education is essential in the 21st century economy. Rising by Degrees tells the story of Latino students working toward a college degree - and why it's so hard for them to get what they want.
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American RadioWorks - Early Lessons (full documentary)
The Perry Preschool Project is one of the most famous education experiments of the last 50 years. The study asked a question: Can preschool boost the IQ scores of poor African-American children and prevent them from failing in school? The surprising results are now challenging widely-held notions about what helps people succeed - in school, and in life.
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American RadioWorks - Latinos and College
Latinos are the fastest growing segment of the United States population, but they're the least likely to have college degrees.
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American RadioWorks - Financing the Real World
American RadioWorks goes to Holy Family Cristo Rey, a school that makes preparation for the work-world part of the curriculum.
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American RadioWorks - The GI Bill
Stephen Smith reports on the impact of the GI Bill on the military, education, and the economy.
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American RadioWorks - Climate Change
Stephen Smith talks with Ben Adair about whether climate change is worth the attention.
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American RadioWorks - GDP and Well-being
A new report from Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says measuring GDP is a poor way to track the recession. Stephen Smith talks with Chief Economics Correspondent Chris Farrell about why.
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American RadioWorks - Education and the G.I. Bill
American RadioWorks Producer Ellen Guettler asks Stephen Smith about the impact returning World War II vets had on our notions of education.
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American RadioWorks - Education and Motivation
American RadioWorks Executive Editor Stephen Smith talks with education reporter Emily Hanford on President Obama's recent address to the country's students.
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American RadioWorks - Recession and the Poor
Stephen Smith talks with Peggy Yusten, chief operating officer of Twin Cities Rise, an anti-poverty program.
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American RadioWorks - Tightwads and Spendthrifts
New research suggests those who spend too little and those who spend too much might be attracted to each other. Stephen Smith talks with researcher Scott Rick about why this might be.
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American RadioWorks - The Prison-Poverty Cycle
Stephen Smith talks with Chief Economics Correspondent Chris Farrell on how prisons affect the economic wellbeing of the larger community.
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American RadioWorks - Race and Mobility
Stephen Smith talks with Ianna Kachoris, a policy analyst with the Pew Charitable Trusts, on her most recent findings as part of the Economic Mobility Project.
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American RadioWorks - Poverty and Persistence
ARW Producer Laurie Stern talks with Stephen Smith about the educational and professional hurdles those in poverty face, and those working to address those challenges.
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American RadioWorks - The Breakdown of Unemployment
Stephen Smith speaks with Marketplace reporter Jeff Tyler about the stress placed on the unemployment system as the rate of unemployment continues to rise.
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American RadioWorks - Soft Skill Education
American RadioWorks education reporter Emily Hanford and Chief Economics Correspondent Chris Farrell speak with Catherine Winter about the educational and economic value of soft skills.
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American RadioWorks - National Education Priorities
American RadioWorks education reporter Emily Hanford and Chief Economics Correspondent Chris Farrell speak with Catherine Winter on the Obama administration's plans to get more young Americans into, and successfully through, college.
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