VirtEd

Cellphones Take Bigger Bite in Family Budget, Transforming Spending Habits

The Wall Street Journal reports on how cellphones are taking a bigger bite out of the family budget- and families are making cuts in other discretionary spending such as eating out and buying new clothes.

The tug of war is only going to get more intense. Wireless carriers are betting they can pull bills even higher by offering faster speeds on expensive new networks and new usage-based data plans. The effort will test the limits of consumer spending as the draw of new technology competes with cellphone owners' more rudimentary needs and desires.

So far, telecom is winning. Labor Department data released Tuesday show spending on phone services rose more than 4% last year, the fastest rate since 2005. During and after the recession, consumers cut back broadly on their spending.

 

Employers Can Tell How Good Prospective Workers Will Be - Based on Facebook Profile!

According to a study from Northeastern and Auburn Universities, one's Facebook profile may be a good predictor of an applicant's success on the job.  This comes as employers ask for applicants passwords to check out their profiles.

 

Researchers found that there was a strong correlation between someone's job success and certain characteristics displayed on a Facebook page.

These included a high number of friends, a wide range of interests and photographs showing far-flung travels, as these show agreeability.

Colleges Powering Up Natural Gas Programs

Colleges are powering up programs in natural gas as this area has boomed nationally.  

Vast stores of natural gas in the Marcellus and Utica shales running under Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and West Virginia have set off a rush to grab leases and secure permits to drill using the extraction technique called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

 

Pilot Program Preparing Students For College After Two Years In High School

 A pilot program to prepare high school students to go to college after two years of high school is being introduced in four states.

Researchers are evaluating ways to put programs in place with rigorous and accurate evaulation systems so that students' time is maximized and that excellent results are achieved.    

Students who pass a series of exams, at that point, could leave high school and enroll—without remedial courses—in a two-year college, or stay in high school to take additional technical coursework, or pursue studies that prepare them for a university.

The approach, modeled after “board-examination systems” in use in such countries as England, is part of a pilot program announced Monday by the National Center on Education and the Economy ,.

 

Schoolhouse Moneyball

Sunday's New York Times features two articles highlighting the influence of money and commerce in our schools.

The first, School Cafeteria’s Fruits and Vegetables Vie With Food Trucks’ Sweet and Salty Treats, documents how schools' efforts to provide healthy meals for students are being sabotaged by the latest iteration of the Good Humor ice cream truck.  These well stocked junk food emporiums on wheels park outside of schools where hungry teens needing a sugar high shell out for a lunch of chips, desserts and sodas.  It is also undermining school cafeteria programs' profits.

Yet, as the school lunch offerings in the cafeteria have become more restrictive, snack food trucks have moved in, sometimes as many as four at a time. And the drivers have been aggressively pursuing the business, even paying the students to save the best parking spots for them, said Rey Mayoral, the principal of Novato High.

 

The second, "On Campus It's One Big Commercial", details how companies are using students as brand ambambassadors to sell all manner of gear for big spending collegiates.  

This fall, an estimated 10,000 American college students will be working on hundreds of campuses — for cash, swag, job experience or all three — marketing everything from Red Bull toHewlett-Packard PCs. For the companies hiring them, the motivation is clear: college students spent about $36 billion on things like clothing, computers and cellphones during the 2010-11 school year alone, according to projections from Re:Fuel, a media and promotions firm specializing in the youth market. And who knows the students at, say, U.N.C., better than the students at U.N.C.?

 

Education and Structural Unemployment

"Looking at Education for Clues on Structural Unemployment " from the Wall Street Journal reports on a study from the Brookings Institution looks at the issue from a new angle: Whether the U.S. unemployment problem is primarily due to weak demand (the lousy economy) or to fundamental issues that will persist even when the economy improves.

The report discusses the mismatch between jobs and education needed for jobs and the gaps within cities among its work force. 

That kind of mismatch between what employers want and what workers have to offer is a classic example of what economists call a “structural” issue in the labor market. In time, workers will develop the skills the job market needs—or employers will readjust their needs to the skills workers have available—but that process is slow. In the meantime, unemployment will remain high.

 

Use Groupon For Cheaper College Tuition

Groupon has invaded academia with a discount being offered for a college course at National Louis University in Chicago.

Will this be the force that will bring down the spiraling cost of college tuitions?  And will this then filter down to private schools at the K-12 level? 

The Chicago-based group coupon site has partnered with National Louis University in Chicago to offer a reduced rate for an introductory graduate level teaching course. While Groupon has offered language and fitness classes before, it is the site’s first time for a tuition deal worth academic credits.

“We realize in order to thrive in the competitive environment of higher education, we need to be where our students are, speak to them in a way they are used to speaking, and many of our potential students receive daily emails from Groupon,” university president Nivine Megahed said in a statement.

 

Bringing Business Practices To Education: The Texas Charter Schools Visa® Platinum Card

The Washington Post reports on The Texas Charter Schools Visa® Platinum Card  which allows a user to donate with each card swipe.  Talk about bringing a business sensibility to education!

Here's the come on:

“This Visa Platinum credit card makes it easier than ever to support our cause! Add in a low introductory rate, no annual fee, no foreign transaction fees and your choice of card designs and you’ve got a great way to give back.

“Our organization gets a donation -- and you get to spread the word about our cause-with every swipe.”

“By using the card, the Texas Charter Schools Association gets:

$50 after your first purchase

2% donation on gas and grocery purchases

1% donation on all other purchases

Up to 10% of purchases made at select merchants!”

 

 

 

Gadget Camp for Girls Teaches Them About Manufacturing

"At This Girls’ Camp, Crafts Take a Drill Press " from the New York Times reports on "Gadget Camp", a summer workshop program aimed at getting girls interested in manufacturing, an area where skilled workers are actually needed in our struggling economy.

This sounds like a program that both boys and girls should have the opportunity to attend to bolster our flagging manufacturing efforts in the US. 

Just over a quarter of the 11.7 million workers in manufacturing are women. But Gadget Camp, a workshop for girls in this suburb west of Chicago, is part of an effort to change that.

Gadget Camp, sponsored in part by a foundation affiliated with the Fabricators and Manufacturers Association, which provided financing to nine other camps this summer, is intended to help over the long haul by exposing girls to an occupation they might previously have considered unappealing, if they considered it at all.

 

Are US Students Ready to Compete? NO!

A webinar "Are US Students Ready to Compete" based on a paper by  Paul E. Peterson, Ludger Woessmann, Eric A. Hanushek and Carlos Xabel Lastra-Anadón asks this question,  They analyzed the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) with an special focus on math as it is the college major that leads to the highest salaries.  The study also tries to provide data that can shed light on our economic policies as US, despite high unemployment, has jobs that can't be filled due to lack of educational achievement and skills.  

The researchers results are not encouraging and unsurprising, given the raft of other data pointing to deficits in math proficiency in the US. This important paper should be included as our nation seeks to form effective programs and curriculum to remedy this dismal situation. 

Given that definition of math proficiency, U.S. students in the Class of 2011, with a 32 percent proficiency rate, came in 32nd among the nations that participated in PISA. Performance levels among the countries ranked 23rd to 31st are not significantly different from that of the U.S. in a statistical sense, yet 22 countries do significantly outperform the United States in the share of students reaching the proficiency level in math. Six countries plus Shanghai and Hong Kong had majorities of students performing at least at the proficiency level, while the United States had less than one-third. For example, 58 percent of Korean students and 56 percent of Finnish students performed at or above a proficient level. Other countries in which a majority—or near majority—of students performed at or above the proficiency level included Switzerland, Japan, Canada, and the Netherlands. Many other nations also had math proficiency rates well above that of the United States, including Germany (45 percent), Australia (44 percent), and France (39 percent).