In response to the growing unemployment of high school graduates, the Macon-Bibb County Office of Workforce Developments reinforced the Summer Teen Work Program. This provides practical internships for teens during summer time which can improve their work aptitude and gain work experience.

The workforce program is federally funded; receiving an assistance of $632,000 from federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act paying about $8.50 per hour for 334 high school and college students to work internships ranging from Captain D’s to River Edge Behavioral Health Center.

Workforce Development had been helping high school and college students since 1998 in providing summer employments for student self-sufficiency which is very essential to Bibb’s low employment rate and competitive job hiring’s. The department also enabled adults to land jobs despite of the competitiveness.

These allowed teens in their enjoy working in their respective interest and gaining helpful knowledge upon doing their summer jobs. This also assists the government particularly in the workforce by saving up extra expenses of hiring non-student workers.

Testimonials from recent student workers support the efficiency of the said program. Students dedicatedly mention the quality work experience they gain from the summer job compared to other work like selling clothes or video games.

The said source of the financial assistance could be affected negatively this year by the current fund shifts. But the administrator strongly claimed that such student financial support shouldn’t be left behind considering the benefits of the program and pointing that paychecks earned by the students (which come from the state) will be cycled back to the economy through student spending.

For the last summer, the program employed 600 high school and college students but sadly due to the funding shifts, the prospective summer workers could be cut down to half this year. If not with the Department of Family and Children Services, there won’t be a program for the said year.

As an innovation to the education methods and techniques of Hawaii’s Nanakuli High School moves into high-tech learning. High School students will experience a new and out of the box learning style made possible by technology.

Incoming Nanakuli freshmen will test-drive brand new laptops as supplementary to their education. With a one laptop per student, new tech learning will take every high school to a new perspective in classroom learning.

The technology had been embraced by more than more than 62 schools around the country and this year, Nanakuli will take on the new technology learning as well as Waianae Public high schools

Teachers are much exited to see such innovation take place while students very eager to click on their laptops and study their first lessons digitally.

The entire freshman class of 150 at Nanakuli High School will be participating in the New Tech Program while about 200 freshmen at Waianae high school will follow the model.

New Tech program had been chosen because of its brought-upon benefits. The model aims at turning around low-performing schools, fostering economic development in communities, and encouraging students to pursue careers in science, math and engineering.

The students will work in groups on problem-based projects with teacher as facilitators enabling students too seek out what they need to know and by being told what to know.

In order to experience such innovation, schools must pay $450,000 for four years of support, professional development and guidance from the New Tech Network, a subsidiary of the KnowledgeWorks Foundation.

Donations were carried by Kamehameha Schools for the school’s enrollment with the New Tech program while the Department of Education, neighboring public elementary schools and Kamehameha itself help in funding $350,000 to buy new laptops for Nanakuli.

Nanakuli and Waianae High Schools are considered a zone for innovation by the Department of Education. The New Tech Program is a high school program expected to improve attendance, graduation rates and student test scores.

As enrollments in most private schools dropped, Summer schools in various schools were not enabled due to the declining number of students. As reported in the Buck Local News, Pennsburry High did not open its summer school which is an aid for students which failed on some subjects. To compensate, the school offered the Twilight Program –an after school program enabling students to earn credits. The school program is held in a small setting and aimed to let students catch up for their failed subjects. The payment for the said program will be the same as the summer school program they offer.

There are lots of Credit Recovery Programs or Twilight Programs all over different district schools. An example is the Metropolitan Nashville Public School, which has 18 twilight programs which allows out-of-school suspension students to be disciplined and have the chance to succeed in their education. The MNPS Twilight program kept 575 students on track in 2009-2010, district-wide; out of school suspensions have decreased by 10% with 13% students fewer students are being suspended, middle schools have seen a 20% drop suspension incidents and 18% fewer students suspended. Years of research lead the district to implement a number of support programs, particularly for middle school students and specific student populations. MNPS is considered below the national and state averages for suspensions of African-American males.

The Twilight program is an alternative enables the students to acquire a high school diploma in a standard base education. The No Child Left Behind (NLCB) Act requires students to graduate from high school and states to improve their graduation rate (NCLB, 2002). The Twilight program should be implemented by the high school during non-school hours as a school-within-a-school approach to support the student achievement and priority is give to students having a difficulty in academic, social, emotional, and behavioral aspect in a regular classroom setting..

Michigan’s u69-12 Robotic Competition-Driven Mentoring Program was chosen to receive a $60,200 from the Innovation Generation grant program from Motorola Foundation. With the will to share advance engineering techniques to underrepresented high schools, such high school program was made possible by the Motorola’s Foundation in cooperation with Michigan State University.

The program will focus on building competition designed robots with the help of engineering students from MSU and will focus on high schools with large enrollment of African-American and Hispanic students as well as all-girls school.

The students will also serve as mentors in robotic teams for socio-economically challenged high schools in Lansing and Detroit. The programs will help first and second year undergraduate engineering students in solving complex problems using an engineering design as they design, build, program and test robots for collegiate robotics competitions.

Competitions will encourage high school students in the fields of science, engineering and mathematics integrated together in a robot design event. Dr Kim (assistant to the dean for recruitment and K-12 outreach, in the MSU College of Engineering) claimed that such program will definitely provide mutual learning for the both parties.

As expected by Kim, 20 MSU engineering students will engage in the U69-12 Robotics Competition Program and the fund from Motorola Foundation will broaden MSU’s to the Detroit Area, provide support for the supplies and develop a robust mentoring relationship with the high school students guaranteeing a more successful program compared to the last few years.

“Engaging youth in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields will be crucial to driving future innovation and keeping America competitive in the global society” said Eileen Sweeney (Director of the Motorola Foundation).

This is the fourth year the Michigan State University attained funding from the Generation Innovation grant program through Motorola’s Foundation –a charitable and philanthropic arm of Motorola.

Cami Anderson, with her vision to encourage progressive learning and create more options for under-credited students proposed to open up alternative high schools. The city alternative high school overseer planned to open three additional charter schools for kids by 2011 to prevent kids from dropping out. The high school program includes a self spaced work online to a small group of students and will require every learner a self plan. She believes that this will help overage students and drop outs students to have more choices upon continuing their education. If this proposal gets approved, the New York superintendent will be the first person to handle educational obligations outside her district concerning charter schools.

Unfortunately, Anderson’s proposal is facing many objections and criticisms even among charter school supporters. The proposal is currently screened at the charter school board. The legitimate concern is whose interests they are going to have front and center in deliberations, Tood Zeibarth (vice president at the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools). Though faced with different issues, Anderson’s team is seeking formal guidance from the Conflict of Interest Board in order to pass out their chartering plan.

About charter schools:

Charter schools are primary and secondary schools which receives financial support through public and private donations but are not subjected to some of the rules that apply to some other public schools in exchange for accountability for producing certain results. Such schools do not have tuition fees but still a part of the educational system. State authorized charter schools are chartered by local school districts. Charter schools exist due to parents, teachers, universities and some activists that feels restricted by the policies of traditional schools. Though some school districts permit corporations to manage chains of charter schools, the school themselves are still non-profit.