Education

The University of New Orleans has been awarded grants totaling $5 million over a five-year period by the Upward Bound program through the U. S. Department of Education.

The grants will fund three projects: UNO's Project Pass, UNO's Jefferson Upward Bound and UNO's Classic Upward Bound.

BATON ROUGE — Louisiana's Department of Education says the state's annual dropout rate has fallen for three years in a row. A department news release says the percentage of dropouts in seventh- through 12th grades decreased from 3.5 in 2009-2010 to 3.1 in 2010-2011. That means 1,100 more students chose to stay in school. 

Construction of four new schoolhouses should be completed as classes resume in August, education officials announced Wednesday night, but modular buildings are ready just in case.

Capital projects, including ground-up school construction, highlighted Wednesday night’s meeting in New Orleans of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. The board meets periodically in New Orleans — Wednesday’s meeting was at Walter L. Cohen High School — to address Recovery School District issues.

In Seattle alone, there are thousands of computer-related jobs waiting to be filled. But at the University of Washington, the number of bachelor's degrees in computer science is the same now as it was more than a decade ago. A lot of students have been rebuffed in their effort to major in computer science or computer engineering.

On a recent Monday morning in Washington, D.C., a group of 3-year-old preschoolers bumbled their way into a circle, more or less, on the rug of their classroom. It was time to read.

The children sat cross-legged as their teacher, Mary-Lynn Goldstein, held high a book, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus. There was a short conversation about pigeons, then, for reasons that weren't entirely clear, cows; and then Goldstein began to read. She read as most teachers read, occasionally stopping to ask a question, point out a picture or make a comment about the story.