| High School Exchange Students in US Share Their Thoughts | |
| 04 November 2009 |
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
Twenty-six thousand foreign exchange students are in American high schools this year. A few days ago, we asked four teenagers who arrived in August to discuss their experience so far. All but one are attending public schools in Fairfax County, Virginia, outside Washington.
Johanna is from Germany.
JOHANNA: "The biggest difference for me is the relationship to the teachers. Because here the teachers are more friends, and in Germany they are more like parents and strict and stuff like that."
Another difference? In American high schools, the students are usually the ones who change rooms. Johanna and Daniel come from schools where the teachers change classrooms.
DANIEL: "In Austria, it's more like you have all classes together with the same group of people. And so you are really good friends with like all the people you're in class with, because you know them since like four years and you have all classes together with them."
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| Hande Gulcin |
HANDE: "You cannot choose your own classes. And you don't have the right to drop out of one of them."
She says Turkish schools are also more formal.
HANDE: "When a teacher comes into the class you have to stand up and greet the teacher. He or she says good morning or good afternoon or something like that and you all, as a class, you answer. We don't do this in class here."
How does the education compare? Hande is in three Advanced Placement classes, which are meant to prepare students for college.
HANDE: "A.P. courses are really hard and they really force you to learn and are really good. But the regular classes, their level is lower than in Turkey."
Rosa is from a country where high school is five years, not four like in America.
ROSA: "In Italy we go to school only during the morning and just like for lessons. And Italian schools [don't] have like other activities. And whatever we want to do, it's outside the school or on our own or like private school or association outside."
On the other hand, she says, having to go elsewhere for activities is not necessarily a bad thing.
ROSA: "We in Italy, or in Europe, I think, we have a more free environment, if I can say this, because we are in touch with a lot of different things that are outside the school. It's like an American school could be a protective box."
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. To learn more about high school exchange programs, go to voaspecialenglish.com. You can also find us on YouTube and Twitter at VOA Learning English. I'm Bob Doughty.
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High School Exchanges in U.S.
The State Department recognizes about 100 sponsoring organizations for its Secondary School Student Exchange Visitor Program. These organizations are responsible for supervising the students and placing them with host families.
Safety activists say parents should be careful in choosing a sponsoring organization. Students should never leave their home country without knowing who their host family will be. Something else to know is how the organization investigates families that want to host exchange students.
Students in the exchange program must be 15 to 18 1/2 years old. They must have no more than 11 years of education (12, if the student went to kindergarten) and a good record in school. They must also speak English well. And they must agree to accept the rules of the exchange program and their host family.
| Write or Wrong: The Death of Handwriting? | |
| 29 October 2009 |
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
Do American children still learn handwriting in school? In this age of the keyboard, some people seem to think handwriting lessons are on the way out.
We asked a literacy professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. Steve Graham says he has been hearing about the death of handwriting for the past fifteen years. So is it still being taught?
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Ninety percent of teachers also say they are required to teach handwriting. But studies have yet to answer the question of how well they are teaching it. Professor Graham says one study published this year found that about three out of every four teachers say they are not prepared to teach handwriting.
STEVE GRAHAM: "And then when you look at how it's taught, you have some teachers who are teaching handwriting by providing instruction for ten, fifteen minutes a day, and then other teachers who basically teach it for sixty to seventy minutes a day -- which really for handwriting is pretty much death."
Many adults remember learning that way -- by copying letters over and over again. Today's thinking is that short periods of practice are better. Many experts also think handwriting should not be taught by itself. Instead, they say it should be used as a way to get students to express ideas. After all, that is why we write.
Professor Graham says handwriting involves two skills. One is legibility, which means forming the letters so they can be read. The other is fluency -- writing without having to think about it. The professor says fluency continues to develop up until high school.
But not everyone masters these skills. Teachers commonly report that about one-fourth of their kids have poor handwriting. Some people might think handwriting is not important anymore because of computers and voice recognition programs.
But Steve Graham at Vanderbilt says word processing is rarely done in elementary school, especially in the early years.
STEVE GRAHAM: "Even with high school teachers, we find that less than fifty percent of assignments are done via word processing or with word processing. And, in fact, if we added in taking notes and doing tests in class, most of the writing done in school is done by hand."
American children traditionally first learn to print, then to write in cursive, which connects the letters. But guess what we learned from a spokeswoman for the College Board, which administers the SAT college admission test. More than seventy-five percent of students choose to print their essay on the test rather than write in cursive.
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. To learn more about handwriting research, and to share comments, go to voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.
| College Guide Aims to Help Students Avoid a 'Thin Education' | |
| 21 October 2009 |
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
A new college guide in the United States compares educational requirements in seven subjects. These include math, science, writing and United States history or government. The other subjects are economics, foreign language and literature.
The free online guide is from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. The council is a nonprofit group that supports liberal arts education.
Its president, Anne Neal, says these areas of knowledge are needed to succeed in a twenty-first century society and an increasingly connected world. Yet she told VOA's Faiza Elmasry it was surprising how many students can graduate with, in her words, a "thin education."
Forty-two of the one hundred colleges and universities surveyed received the lowest marks. This meant they required two or fewer of the seven subjects. Five schools received a top grade for requiring six subjects. These were Brooklyn College in New York City, Texas A&M, the University of Texas-Austin, West Point and the University of Arkansas.
Robert Costrell is a professor of education reform and economics at the University of Arkansas. He says many, if not all, of the top American colleges once had a core curriculum -- a set of courses required for all students.
But over the years, many have dropped these requirements. Or they have "watered them down," Professor Costrell says, into what became known as distribution requirements. This system lets a student choose from a number of different courses to satisfy a requirement.
ROBERT COSTRELL: "And in many cases these courses went too far, I would say, towards the fluffy treatment of serious material, and students could satisfy their requirement by taking such courses."
Professor Costrell says schools should not only re-examine what they teach. They should also measure what students have learned -- for example, through some form of examinations or papers.
A new report this week from the College Board showed that college prices continue to rise. But Anne Neal from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni says higher prices do not guarantee a better general education. In fact, the group found that the higher the tuition, the more likely that students have to develop their own general education.
The college guide is on the Web at whatwilltheylearn.com. Anne Neal says her group is surveying more colleges. The hope, she says, is to discover what college graduates have really learned, and how ready they are to compete in the global marketplace.
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report. I'm Steve Ember.
| Getting Students Excited About a Life in the Biosciences | |
| 15 October 2009 |
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
The American biotechnology industry recently did a study of bioscience education across the country. The biosciences are biology and other sciences that deal with living organisms.
Paul Hanle is president of the Biotechnology Institute, one of the groups that did the study. He says international tests show that the United States is performing twenty-fifth out of thirty developed countries in science education.
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But the report said a number of the fifty states perform much better than others. Eight were rated as leaders: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Vermont and Wisconsin.
Paul Hanle says increasing the numbers of bioscience graduates could help the economy grow. He says there are many high-paying jobs in the biosciences. And some lower-paying jobs require only two years of college, or even a technical education program in high school.
Now here is a way to get students excited -- or more excited -- about science. Offer them fifty thousand dollars in savings bonds and the ceremonial title of "America's Top Young Scientist."
Ten children ages eight to fourteen were in New York recently for the finals of this year's Discovery/3M Young Scientist Challenge. Middle school students from every state entered the competition, sending in videotaped ideas. Officials said the five hundred students who entered were judged as much on their communication skills as for the scientific talent they showed.
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| Top winner Marina Dimitrov, with duct-taped structure |
All three eggs fell or broke. But all the structures remained standing -- thanks in large part to the large amounts of duct tape used by the students.
In the end, Nico Seamons and Nikita Gaurev shared second place. Marina Dimitrov won the top prize.
MARINA DIMITROV: "I just think it's really important to get kids excited about science at an early age, because they might be the next Albert Einstein or Isaac Newton, or America's top young scientist. It's just that I want to show that ordinary kids can do extraordinary things."
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report. You can find our reports with transcripts and podcasts -- and share comments -- at voaspecialenglish.com. You can also follow us on Twitter and YouTube. I'm Jim Tedder.
| 'Ghost' and 'Guest' Authors Still a Concern for Medical Journals | |
| 08 October 2009 |
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
Last week, we discussed one problem for medical journals: the question of authorship. You would think that all the scientists who took part in a research study would be listed as authors. But that is not always the case. Sometimes there are honorary authors and ghost authors. Honorary authors, also called guest authors, receive credit in a published study but had little to do with designing it or writing the article.
Ghost authors work on studies but are not credited. Sometimes they are paid by drug companies to place articles in journals to support the company's products.
One example was described last month at a meeting of international medical journal editors in Vancouver, Canada. Three researchers at the University of California at San Francisco presented information about a drug company's marketing campaign that included placing research articles in medical journals.
In the nineteen nineties, the drug company Parke Davis paid another company, Medical Education Systems, to produce journal articles in support of one of its drugs. Medical Education Systems worked with authors chosen by Parke Davis to research, develop and write articles for publication. Editors of the journals that published the studies did not know about the companies' involvement.
Another study presented at the meeting was done by editors at the Journal of the American Medical Association. Researchers questioned authors of nine hundred articles published last year in six top medical journals.
They found that twenty-one percent of the papers published in those journals had honorary authors. Eight percent had ghost authors. Two percent had both. They compared this to a similar study in nineteen ninety-six. It found that nineteen percent of articles had honorary authors, twelve percent had ghost authors and two percent had both.
The researchers noted the drop in the percentage of ghost authors from twelve percent to eight percent. Annette Flanagin and Joe Wislar said they were pleased about the decrease but had hoped it would be larger.
Some researchers and editors say changes must be made to stop such false author claims. Some have called for journals to identify ghostwritten articles and ban their authors from future publication.
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. I'm Bob Doughty.
| Authors of Medical Studies Not Always Who They Seem | |
| 01 October 2009 |
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
Medical journals are an important part of continuing education for doctors and other health providers. Journals say they do their best to publish high quality studies by trusted authors.
The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors says: "An 'author' is generally considered to be someone who has made substantive intellectual contributions to a published study ... "
In other words, someone who did much of the work.
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Readers may have no way to know who did what when studies list several authors. And not all studies list all their authors.
The Public Library of Science, or PLoS, is a nonprofit organization based in California. Its journals are available free online. The editors of PLoS Medicine ask authors if anyone from a company or public relations agency suggested or paid for their article.
They also ask if a professional writer helped with the article and to what extent. And they ask if the article is similar to articles published in other journals.
By asking these questions, the editors try to guard against the use of ghost authors. A ghost author is someone who had a lot to do with an article but is not given credit.
Drug companies have been known to pay researchers to place articles in journals to support their products.
Not all ghost authors, though, are paid. And there may be nothing scientifically wrong with a study involving paid authors who are not identified. But journal editors say everyone who worked on a study needs to take responsibility.
Another issue is the honorary author. Unlike a ghost author, an honorary author gets credit in the article but had little if anything to do with it. Authors sometimes add a well-known name to increase the chances that an article will be published. For example, the person may be the head of the university department that did the study.
The chief editor of PLoS Medicine says honorary authors are a more common problem than ghost authors. Virginia Barbour says the pressure in higher education to get published may be responsible for some of this. But she says any kind of dishonesty can shake people's faith in the medical profession.
We'll have more on this subject next week. And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. I'm Steve Ember.
| Getting a Fellowship, From the Ford Foundation | |
| 24 September 2009 |
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
The Ford Foundation in the United States is a charitable organization that calls itself "a partner for social change." It has a study program currently available to college graduates in twenty-two countries and territories in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
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| Ford fellowship recipient Caroline Kathomi returned to Kenya where she works with epilepsy patients |
Joan Dassin is the executive director of the program.
JOAN DASSIN: "Let's say you have an undergraduate law degree but you really want to be able to bring international human rights standards to bear on a particular conflict in your part of the world. So in that case we would send you to a program in Geneva on international human rights that would give you the international markers that you need to press cases in your particular country setting, and so on. So we work very closely with students not so much about what they want to study, but more about what problem are you trying to solve."
About two-thirds of the fellows study in the United States, Canada or Europe. The others study in their home country or region.
The Ford Foundation started the program eight years ago with two hundred eighty million dollars. Fellows are chosen by independent local committees. They get advice about which schools and programs could help them reach their goals. The foundation says ninety-five percent are accepted into a university graduate program within one year of getting a fellowship.
Almost four thousand fellows have been chosen since the first were named in June of two thousand one. As of last December almost half had completed their fellowships.
The Ford Foundation says the goals include strengthening democratic values, reducing poverty and increasing international cooperation. Another goal is to fight "brain drain" -- to make sure fellows return home to use their educations. The foundation says more than eighty percent have done that.
The program pays all costs, including support services like training in computer skills, academic writing and a foreign language. Partner organizations in the home countries stay in contact with the fellows throughout the program.
Joan Dassin says the fellowships are aimed especially at those with the fewest resources available.
JOAN DASSIN: "People from all walks of life, and particularly from rural areas or marginalized communities, can have access to higher education at the most advanced levels, and our program provides that opportunity."
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. You can find us at voaspecialenglish.com, or on Twitter and YouTube at VOA Learning English. I'm Steve Ember.
| Stanley Kaplan: Remembering a Test Prep Pioneer | |
| 16 September 2009 |
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
Here is a question for a college admissions test. Who was Stanley Kaplan? Did he A) start a test preparation company, B) start the test preparation industry, or C) die last month at age ninety? The correct answer is D) all of the above.
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| Stanley Kaplan |
His parents were European immigrants who did not go to college, and he himself was rejected from medical school. He thought all Americans should have an equal chance at the best colleges, not just children of wealthy families.
These days, more students go to college. Yet wealthier families are the ones best able to pay for test preparation. Many programs cost up to one thousand dollars or more, though some are available for poor families.
Parents may hate the whole idea, but they feel nervous seeing others doing it. Then, after college, there are graduate admissions tests to prepare for.
How much do American spend on this largely unsupervised industry? At least one billion dollars a year, estimates David Hawkins at the National Association for College Admission Counseling. The research company Outsell puts the amount at two and a half billion.
The two biggest providers in the United States -- Kaplan and Princeton Review -- both operate in more than twenty countries.
Thirty years ago, the Federal Trade Commission found that Stanley Kaplan's program could raise SAT scores -- but only by about twenty-five points. The association for college admission counseling recently found a thirty-point increase with Kaplan and other programs.
Still, the group says this is not enough to make a difference for most students. It might help some get into a top college, but only if they have above-average scores in the first place. The report suggested saving money by considering "less costly forms" of test preparation.
Now, more about our story last week on President Obama's nationally broadcast speech to students. We noted that many conservatives raised objections before the speech. But in nineteen ninety-one, Democrats accused President George H.W. Bush of using the last such speech for political purposes.
Then as now, Democrats led Congress. They demanded an investigation. It found no misuse of public money to support the speech.
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. I'm Steve Ember.
| Facing America's High Dropout Rates | |
| 09 September 2009 |
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
Less than sixty percent of students now entering four-year American colleges are likely to graduate. The completion rate is lower than for almost any other wealthy country, and worst for poor and minority students.
A new book about America's public universities explores the complex causes of the high dropout rate. The book is called "Crossing the Finish Line."
President Obama wants the United States to again have the world's highest percentage of college graduates by two thousand twenty. But to finish college, children first have to reach the starting line by getting there.
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| President Obama shakes hands with students after speaking at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia |
BARACK OBAMA: "My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn't always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn't fit in."
But he told students that problems in their own lives should not stop them from learning.
BARACK OBAMA: "That's no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class or dropping out of school. That's no excuse for not trying."
This was not the first presidential speech to students. Ronald Reagan spoke from the White House in nineteen eighty-eight. And George H.W. Bush spoke from a school in Washington in nineteen ninety-one.
But many conservatives criticized plans for the speech. Some called it "socialized education" or federal interference in local schools. Others feared it would be too political. Some schools decided not to show the speech. But the White House released the text on Monday, and that calmed a lot of critics.
On Sunday, on the CBS program "Face the Nation," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said thirty percent of students do not graduate from high school. He called the dropout rate "staggering." It represents more than a million students every year who entered ninth grade but did not complete twelfth grade.
The education secretary called the objections to the president's speech "silly." But he also said one of the activities suggested for students "wasn't worded quite correctly." It related to the goal of increasing college graduation rates. It suggested that students "Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president." But after conservatives objected, the activity was changed to writing about personal goals.
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. I'm Steve Ember.
| Going Digital: The Future of College Textbooks? | |
| 03 September 2009 |
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
The average college student in America spent an estimated seven hundred dollars on textbooks last year. The National Association of College Stores reported more than five billion dollars in sales of textbooks and course materials.
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| Students at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania wait in line to sell back used textbooks at a local bookstore |
Online versions are now available for many of the most popular college textbooks. E-textbooks can cost half the price of a new print textbook. But students usually lose access after the end of the term. And the books cannot be placed on more than one device, so they are not easy to share.
So what do students think of e-textbooks? Administrators at Northwest Missouri State University wanted to find out. Earlier this year they tested them with five hundred students in twenty classes.
The university is unusual. It not only provides laptop computers to all seven thousand of its full-time students. It does not require students to buy their textbooks either. They rent them to save money. The school aims to save even more by moving to e-textbooks.
The students in the survey reported that downloading the books from the Internet was easy. They liked the idea of carrying lighter backpacks. And fifty-six percent said they were better able to find information.
But most found that using e-textbooks did not change their study habits. And sixty percent felt they read more when they were reading on paper. In all, almost half the students said they still liked physical textbooks better.
But the survey found that cost could be a big influence. Fifty-five percent said they would choose e-textbooks if using them meant their textbook rental fee would not increase.
Roger Von Holzen heads the Center for Information Technology in Education at Northwest Missouri State. He tells us that administrators are disappointed with the e-textbooks now available because the majority are not interactive.
He thinks growth will come when more digital books include video, activities, games and other ways to interact with the information. The technology is improving. But for now, most of the books are just words on a screen.
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. What do you think of e-textbooks? Share your thoughts at voaspecialenglish.com, where you can also find our reports. I'm Steve Ember.
| Going Digital: California's Textbook Project | |
| 26 August 2009 |
This is the VOA Special English Education Report.
California has a new program called the Digital Textbook Initiative.
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: "Starting this fall with high school math and science, we will be the first state in the nation -- the first state in the nation -- to provide schools with a state-approved list of digital textbooks."
That was Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in June, talking about his effort to get schools to use materials available free online. He listed reasons why he thinks digital textbooks make sense.
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| About 2,000 California school employees march in San Jose on August 5 to protest state budget cuts, in a California School Employees Association photo |
The state has had to make severe cuts in school spending because of deep financial problems. More than six million students attend California public schools.
Earlier this year, California invited content developers to offer digital math and science materials for high schools. These had to meet at least ninety percent of the state's learning requirements. Specially trained teachers examined sixteen textbooks and approved ten of them.
Six of the ten were published by the CK12 Foundation. Co-founder Neeru Khosla says the nonprofit group had been developing digital science and math books for about two years. The foundation paid teachers and other education professionals to write and edit them. The money came from a group financed by the Khosla family. The AMAR Foundation also supports projects in India.
California cannot require schools to use the digital textbooks. Individual school districts will have to decide for themselves.
Susan Martimo, a California Department of Education official, says she does not expect widespread use right away. Her best guess is that some schools with a lot of technology will be the first to use them, but only in addition to their traditional books.
School administrators point out that the texts may be free online, but students need a way to access them. Not everyone has a computer or electronic reader. Schools could print out copies, but that would not help the environment. Also, there is the cost to train teachers to use digital textbooks effectively.
Next week: a look at digital textbooks in college. And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. You can find transcripts and podcasts of our reports at voaspecialenglish.com. I'm Steve Ember.
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