Eleanor Roosevelt High School Opens Its Doors
by Katarzyna Kozanecka
“Do one thing every day that scares you,” said Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of a great president, and a great woman in her own right. This September, a new high school named after her will open in its permanent home... READ MORE

Unlimited Talent at Talent Unlimited HS
by Katarazyna Kozanecka
Bearing violins, sheet music, scripts, ballet shoes and their voices, students from all over the city come to Talent Unlimited High School on 68th Street and 2nd Avenue in New York. For four days each December and January, the line of... READ MORE

Taking Education Outside of the Classroom:
NYC Museum School
by Rob Luchow
Most high school students learn about buoyancy from a textbook or a lab experiment. Students at the New York City Museum School (NYCMS) understand buoyancy from observing it on a sailboat at South Street Seaport. READ MORE

Teaching Students to Care for Their Planet: Environmental Studies HS
by Rob Luchow
How many high schools offer the opportunity to eat a raspberry on a student-designed rooftop garden? Environmental Studies High School (HSES) does. Located on 444 West 56th Street, HSES teaches its students the importance of... READ MORE

SPECIAL EDUCATION

Inclusion: What Are We Doing?
Perspectives From The Field
by Marjorie Aug
In the mid-seventies a landmark act for educating special education students was passed to ensure the rights of special needs students to receive appropriate instruction in a regular education setting, based on the individual needs of each student. READ MORE

Dancing with Wheelchairs in New Mexico
by Jan Aaron
“Like other people, little girls in wheelchairs and older people, too, want to dance,” says Shira Greenberg, founder and artistic director of Keshet Dance Company based in Albuquerque, NM. She adds: “Anyone—regardless of age, physical abilities, or expertise can become a beautiful dancer.” READ MORE

EDITORIALS

Decisions, Decisions
by Stuart Dunn
A great many decisions have been made recently which will have enormous impact on education for years to come. The Supreme Court has decided that race may be a consideration in college admission, but that it may not be given a fixed weight. I support these decisions, although I believe the emphasis on diversity is excessive. READ MORE

SPOTLIGHT ON SCHOOLS

Study Shows Drug Testing in Schools Not Enough
Drug testing in American schools is a relatively new and somewhat controversial procedure. Fought by the ACLU on the grounds of being intrusive to students’ rights, the Supreme Court of the United States first allowed student athletes to be tested in... READ MORE

Heads of School Speak - PRIVATE
Every Student Should Be Required to Read...
by Howard Schott
What a huge question this is! Choosing from the wealth of great literature while selecting materials that are relevant to today’s youth presents a unique challenge to the responsible educator. READ MORE

$45 Million State-of-the-Art Fire Training
Facility Opens
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta recently opened the Fire Department’s new $45 million fire training facility at the Fire Academy on Randall’s Island. This much-needed facility included the construction of three new... READ MORE

Teachers College, Columbia U Profs Discuss NYC School Funding
Following the recent decision by the New York State Court of Appealsin CFE vs. State of New York that requires State leaders to establish a commission to correct school financing formulas by giving more money to NYC schools, Teachers College, Columbia University, excerpts experts from issued the following comments. READ MORE

Maxine Greene, Philosopher & Aesthete
by Joan Baum, Ph.D.
What’s immediately apparent about Maxine Greene, Barnard class of `38, the philosopher queen of aesthetic education, who has, in fact, been referred to as “the most important American philosopher [on education] since John Dewey” and “the consummate spider woman,” for her groundbreaking interdisciplinary research, is her memory.
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Teaching Kids How to Read
by Jill Lewis
If you can read this sentence, you probably don’t know what it’s like to look at a line of letters and be utterly baffled. Unfortunately, too many children throughout New York are struggling with such simple sentences as, “See Sam run.” READ MORE

Leadership Academy Launched at Tweed
Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein recently announced the opening of the New York City Leadership Academy and greeted the first class of 90 aspiring principals. Deputy Mayor Walcott joined Chancellor Klein at the... READ MORE

Summers Come, Careers Go
by Jill Levy
As the summer progresses, many of you will be leaving us for a well-deserved retirement. Some were not ready to take this important and daunting step but acted because of changes on the horizon or the threat of layoffs. READ MORE

COLLEGES

Barnard College Holds Young Women’s
Leadership Conference
by Christina Cuomo Perpignano
“With so many different ‘Leadership Programs’ available to high school students, how could this program be any different?” That was my initial reaction when I was given the information on the Young Women’s Leadership Institute conference that... READ MORE

Boston U’s HS Scholars Program
Boston University has officially marked the 30th anniversary of the nation’s largest and longest-running scholarship program for urban public high school students. With the $5.4 million in four-year, full-tuition scholarships... READ MORE

NY Women in Communications Elects New President
Joannie C. Danielides, President, Danielides Communications, Inc. has been elected to lead the nationally acclaimed communications organization—New York Women In Communications, Inc. (NYWICI) as... READ MORE

College & University Presidents Serve as Alcohol & Drug Prevention Leaders
The Higher Education Center for Alcohol and Other Drug Prevention announced new members of the Presidents Leadership Group (PLG), a body of higher education presidents and chancellors who have made student... READ MORE

Goldman Sachs & Institute for International Ed
Teach Business Skills to College Students by Katarzyna Kozanecka
“Unfortunately, most of the world never thinks from a business perspective,” said Steve Mariotti, president and founder of the National Foundation for Teaching Enterprises (NFTE). In other words, he said, people working in the... READ MORE

MEDICAL UPDATE

What Color is Your Summer?
A visit to The New York Botanical Garden
Saturday, August 9, 2003, Chinese Garden: The Cheung family takes you on a special guided tour of their garden. See bitter melon, tomatoes, and Chinese celery. READ MORE

New Study Supports Adding Nutrients
to Infant Formulas
The results of a new study show that Enfamil LIPIL with Iron which is supplemented with the fatty acids DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) and ARA (arachidonic acid) helps to significantly improve the visual development of infants compared to non-supplemented formula. READ MORE

Vital Role of Nursing Assistants Acknowledged
The American Health Care Association (AHCA) and the National Center for Assisted Living (NCAL) urge all Americans to salute the dedicated work of nursing assistants throughout our nation who, under the most challenging of circumstances, provide compassionate, selfless service to our nation’s most vulnerable seniors and persons with disabilities.
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College Provost will Lead State Medical
School Association
Ralph A. O’Connell, M.D., New York Medical College provost and dean of its School of Medicine, has been elected president of the Associated Medical Schools of New York. READ MORE

Four CCNY Grads Receive Salk Scholarships for Medical School
A Brooklyn resident whose goal is to find a cure for lupus, a Pakistani immigrant involved in a complex cancer research project, and a soon to be wed graduate with an interest in DNA are City College’s 2003 Jonas E. Salk Scholarship recipients. READ MORE

BOOKS

Logos Bookstore’s Recommendations
by H. Harris Healy, III, President, Logos Bookstore READ MORE

2 Reviews:
The Irony of Early School Reform and School Choices
by Merri Rosenberg
Given the current political and educational climate, where there is much hand wringing about the plight of American public education—and specifically that of the nation's urban public schools—it's a useful reminder that such ferocious debates are nothing new. READ MORE

Beat the August Heat with Summer-Theme Books!
by Selene S. Vasquez READ MORE

MUSIC, ART & DANCE

Richard Kogan, M.D.: Music, A Window to the Soul
by Pola Rosen, Ed.D.
Listening to Dr. Richard Kogan passionately perform the technically masterful passages of Chopin’s Polonaise at an interview at Weill Medical College of Cornell University recently, transported me to a state of rhapsody. READ MORE

MOVIES AND THEATER

Camp & Spy Kids 3-D: Great Summer Fare
by Jan Aaron
Actor screenwriter Todd Graff’s first feature, “Camp,” is about a bunch of self-described “freaks” who spend their summer at Camp Ovation, a musical workshop for youngsters in upstate New York. Know any kids you’d like to send to a place like this? READ MORE

METROBEAT

Driving Crime Down and Revitalizing Neighborhoods Throughout The City
by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg
Good news has a way of building on itself; success breeds success. Because New York City is the safest big city in the nation, and because we’re both addressing our short-term budget problems and going ahead with... READ MORE

Mentoring USA Enhances Self-Esteem Development for Immigrant Youth
by Matilda Cuomo & Preeti Parasharami
Ana, an immigrant youth from the Dominican Republic, once said to her mentor, “[By moving to the United States] I have lost my sense of language, culture and self identity.” Ana, who attends PS 20, speaks of the difficulty or ‘disconnect’ many newly immigrated youth experience when attending city schools. READ MORE

Hearings On High-Stakes Testing Planned
by Assemblyman Steven Sanders
Later this fall, I will chair hearings on New York State’s high-stakes Regents exams, the subject of much debate. All too often, high standards, which the Regents and State Education Commissioner Richard Mills are to be congratulated for developing, are confused with high-stakes, Ado or die exams. READ MORE

TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION

Codetek’s VirtualDesktop
by Mitchell Levine
Education technological environments aren’t like corporate ones. In the corporate IT world, there’s no need for “legacy” hardware; in fact, the description is a euphemism for “disposable.” READ MORE

Advanced Force’s DeviceLock
by Mitchell Levine
Longtime readers of Education Update’s Technology and Education section undoubtedly are aware of the almost 1.1 Billion dollars the New York City school system has spent on technology and technology education. READ MORE

Intercue Professional PDA Form generation suite
by Mitchell Levine
This product satisfies what I think suffices as the truest definition of “revolutionary”- an idea which solves a problem which people don’t yet realize they have. READ MORE

Now Software’s Now Up-to-Date and Contact
by Mitchell Levine
A lot of attention’s been paid to the flashiest and most sexy elements of education technology in the last several years: servers, platforms, laptops, and other boutique hardware. READ MORE

SmartDraw Diagramming Utility
by Mitchell Levine
The SmartDraw graphics package for charts and diagrams is actually the most fun software utility that I’ve used in some time. Almost any teacher of statistics or social studies has had the difficulty of trying to communicate a vital topic to their class that has unfortunate stigma of being, at least from the vantage point of a typical student, “dry.”
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