No more teachers

In the L.A. Times there was an article called “Teachers dropping out too,” in which it showed that teachers are quitting their jobs “in alarming numbers — 22% in four years or fewer” because of working conditions.
“Classroom interruptions, student discipline, increasing demands, insufficient supplies, overcrowding, unnecessary meetings, lack of support — all play a role in burning out teachers,” said the article in the Times.
Liberal Arts major, Enedina Medina, 24, agrees.
Even as a student wanting to be a teacher, the expectations to know everything are high, and she is constantly left to feel like she will never be prepared to be a teacher.
“My professors want me to know everything about all the materials," said Medina. "For example, when they ask me a math question and I don’t know it, they’ll say ‘What! You don’t know it and you’re going to be a teacher?’”

Medina said that she has felt discouraged from pursing teaching and all she wants now is to graduate.

With potential teachers already feeling like they don’t deserve to teach, there’s less people who will replace not only the teachers who are retiring, but those who are droping out.

Article:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-teachers27apr27,1,4112764.story?page=1

Ultimate frisbee team interview

Getting hit in the head is only one of the risks of interviewing an ultimate Frisbee team. I interviewed the men's ultimate Frisbee team. Stalkers, as they were preparing for regionals. This is the first time they make it to regionals and all of the players are very exciting. As I was interviewing Rory Cohen, a player through the Frisbee to our direction and it landed on my head. That is one of the injuries that ultimate Frisbee players can have, said Cohen.
For more information of the team go to http://www.csulbultimate.com/index4.html

Parents are tired of inefficiency

In an article from the L.A. Times covering the 11th annual Parent Summit, parents from the L.A. Unified School District voiced their concerns and frustrations to the panel present at the summit. Parents are tired of their children not receiving the proper services, not enough tutors and constant change of teachers in a class. Gang violence is also another problem that a student was concern about.

Although LAUSD tries to improve, there are many things that are still not solved and parents asked LAUSD to act quicker.

http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-me-summit22apr22,1,4999317.story?coll=la-news-learning

The interview with Reed

As I worked on my profile, I learned a few things about Dr. Reed. She is a feminist who teaches a class that makes students think deeply about the portrayals of women and minorities on TV.
She has a passion to teach feminism and considers it a privilege to teach something she feels so strongly about. As she was talking to me, she mentioned a few names that are important to the feminist movement.
“Do you know who Lily Tomlin is?
“No,” I said.
“You don’t know who Lily Tomlin is?” asked Reed with amusement.
She then laughed softly and said, “I laugh because I think about how young you are.”
I apologized for my ignorance. But she continued talking about who Lily Tomlin was and why she was one of her favorite people.
As she talked about how she became a professor, her voice evoked a passion for the profession, that passion that good professor are said to have.
Reed felt thrilled for choosing her for my profile assignment and was very cooperative with me.
The only thing I hope is to interview people as cooperative as her for my next stories.

Ivy League universities reject many high school students

Many well prepared high school seniors have been rejected from Ivy League universities. Students with 4.0 GPA’s and perfect SAT scores have been rejected from their schools of choice from all over the country. The Ivy League colleges rejected the highest amount of students ever. For example:
“Stanford received a record 23,956 undergraduate applications for the fall term, accepting 2,456 students, meaning the school took 10.3 percent of applicants,” said the New York Times.
Other four-year colleges and universities did not receive as many applications, so those schools did not reject a lot of students.

With all this competition, how do high school students prepare to stand out from each other? What else are they suppose to do to be accepted to their top university?

Many high schools students whose goal is to be accepted to one of these Ivy League schools already have a lot of things on their plate, many extra-curricular activities, AP classes, community service, and tutoring, to do more for them to be accepted into these universities may be asking too much from them.

This is the link to the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/04/education/04colleges.html?ex=1176868800&en=55fbd6a04e1739df&ei=5070&emc=eta1