UMBC Graduate Horizons: "University Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) Graduate Horizons program is designed to introduce minority students to graduate education and its benefits for your career.

WHO SHOULD APPLY TO ATTEND GRADUATE HORIZONS:


Students who are seriously considering UMBC for Graduate School

Students eligible to pursue a graduate degree in Fall 2006 or 2007

Those holding a cumulative GPA of 3.3 or higher (on a 4.0 scale) reflected on a university transcript.

From an underrepresented group (ethnic minority and men or women who are underrepresented in their academic field of study, and who are U.S. citizens or permanent U.S. residents)

Selected students must complete the Horizons online applications and must submit transcripts reflecting all undergraduate work, by September 15, 2005"

ESPN.com: Page 2 : Don't blame Huggins: "What must be questioned is the sanity of the black community that continues to allow its youth to be used by institutions that don't respect them.

The University of Cincinnati basically just said that, for 16 years, Bob Huggins had little interest in educating the black athletes he recruited. That's not a secret nor is it much of a surprise. It's probably even unfair to blame Huggins.

The blame falls on the players, their families and the black culture that gleefully participates in and condones this exploitation because a handful of black kids sign NBA contracts.

Cincinnati, just like every other mainstream academic institution, has virtually no interest in properly educating the black underclass. It's not the mission of a mainstream institution. UC, Duke, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio State, USC, Notre Dame and all the rest are set up to educate upper- and middle-class kids."

USATODAY.com - Is bilingual education report being downplayed?: "The government will not publish a report it commissioned on bilingual education - and critics say that's because the Bush administration disagrees with the findings, which cast doubt on the efficacy of teaching immigrant children through English-only lessons."

Argosy University Named to Black Issues In Higher Education Top 100 Institutions Awarding Graduate Degrees: "Argosy University/Sarasota and Argosy
University/Chicago were recently named by the July 14, 2005 issue of Black Issues In Higher Education Top 100 lists as among the leading colleges and universities in the U.S. awarding undergraduate and post-graduate degrees to minority students during the 2003-04 academic year.
Argosy University/Chicago was ranked #1 in awarding doctorate degrees inpsychology to American Indians."

For more information on Black Issues in Higher Education Top 100 list, visit http://www.blackissues.com.

Education secretary calls lawsuit complaint 'red herring': "[Education Secretary Margaret] Spellings, speaking to the Atlanta Press Club, said the lawsuit 'does trouble me a little bit' and, afterward, suggested states balking at the law simply fear the results of its accountability measures.

'I just see that as a red herring,' she said of Connecticut's claim this year's federal funds will fall $41.6 million short of paying for staffing, training and tests for No Child Left Behind.

'What are they afraid of knowing, I guess, is one of the things I'd like to know.'"

Helping All Students Learn: Identifying School Districts Across the U.S. that are Significantly Narrowing Achievement GapsSchools, Public Schools, School Districts - SchoolMatters

"Introduction

In far too many classrooms across America, the academic performance of black, Hispanic and economically disadvantaged students is more likely to lag behind that of their white or more well-off classmates.

It is no mystery that these longstanding achievement gaps exist; they have been well documented by researchers for decades, and their closure is one of the most persistent challenges in American education. In fact, narrowing and ultimately closing achievement gaps on states' reading and math tests is one of the explicit goals of the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, and the impetus behind many school improvement efforts across the nation.

Yet the challenge of narrowing achievement gaps is a more complex undertaking than is often realized. For example, where racial achievement gaps are concerned, it is not enough to simply decrease the difference in the average proficiency rates between white and minority students, because the gap can narrow as the result of one group's falling or static test scores. This is illustrated when a higher-performing group's scores decline, while a lower-performing group's scores remain stable. The result: a narrowed gap without any improvement in achievement. Therefore, a narrowing achievement gap is most significant when the average proficiency rates of both groups being compared increase ."

Connecticut Takes U.S. to Court Over Education Law - New York Times: "Accusing the Bush administration of being 'arbitrary, rigid and capricious' in carrying out its signature No Child Left Behind education law, Connecticut sued the federal government today, seeking relief from a requirement to scrap its own testing program in favor of a more costly one.

The suit, the first by a state to challenge Mr. Bush's No Child Left Behind initiative, argues that Connecticut is not being adequately reimbursed for the cost of switching to annual testing from its current program of testing every other year.

The suit opens a new front in the struggle between the federal government and states that have objected to the law, in some cases by passing legislative protests and in others, like Texas [emphasis mine], by defying federal officials."

Workshop aims to show Hispanics way to college - The Boston Globe: "According to a 2003 survey commissioned by Sallie Mae of 2,400 Hispanic parents and college-age youths in seven large cities, three-quarters of young Latino adults who are not in college said they would have been more likely to attend if they had known more about financial aid. Two-thirds of Latino parents surveyed said they did not receive any information on financial aid before their children left high school. More than half of the parents, and 43 percent of young Latino adults, could not name one source of college financial aid.

''It's a huge problem,' said Hugh Rosen, spokesman for the Sallie Mae Fund. ''The Latino population in the United States is exploding, yet at the same time, the rate of college attendance and graduation is lagging far behind.'"

HSBC Offers Financial Literacy Workshops to Students at HBCUs: "The first course under the new HSBC-SFEPD partnership was delivered this week at Virginia State University. Additional workshops will be offered in the coming weeks at Rust College in Mississippi, Savannah State University in Georgia, Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina, and Delaware State University. Seminars will be held at 61 universities during the 2005-2006 academic year.

'Now more than ever, it's critical that young adults understand how their short-term financial decisions affect them over the long term,' said Loretta Abrams, HSBC's vice president of community development and consumer advocacy. 'Our credit profile is inextricably linked to the interest rates we pay when buying a home or a car and our ability to get certain jobs. The knowledge of how to make wise credit choices is one of the best gifts we can give to our next generation of leaders.'"

Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation Opens Applications for 250 Scholarships: "The Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation, a non-profit organization created to support the higher education of deserving high school seniors in the United States, announces the opening of its scholarship application period August 15, 2005 through October 31, 2005.
Applications are available at http://www.coca-colascholars.org and must be completed and submitted by October 31, 2005 of the student's senior year. Students who do not have access to the online application can request application materials from their high school counselor or call (800) 306-2653 for more information.

Is anyone reading and/or using this thing?

I've been curating it for a little over two years and I've rarely gotten feedback, and only then in the form of corrections or addtions to the links posted.
I can't say it's a labor of love. More like habit bordering on obsession.
But I'm not inclined to stop anytime soon, just wondering if there's anyone out there.
So if you stop by from time to time or just slipped in by mistake, drop me a line at barry.wynn@gmail.com

Gay News From 365Gay.com - Gay Journalists Launch Education Program For Reporters: "The new program will bring together all of NLGJA's education efforts, including two new features: The Educators' Toolbox, an online resource for educators who want to include sexual orientation issues in their curriculum; and the Leroy F. Aarons Scholarship Program - NLGJA's first scholarship.

The Toolbox, designed under the direction of Dr. Dane Claussen, Point Park University (Pittsburgh), and Barbara Raab of NBC News, is available at www.nlgja.com/education.

Details of the $5,000 Leroy F. Aarons Scholarship will be announced at the NLGJA's

Convention, Sept. 22-25, in Chicago."

law.com - Article: "Patent law hasn't been a magnet for minority and women law students. But that may change if Townsend and Townsend and Crew has its way.
The firm is offering $2,000 scholarships to women and racial minorities who are committed to pursuing a career in patent law. Each scholarship is for a single academic year; students may reapply for an award in successive years.
This year Townsend is awarding a scholarship to one student at each of six schools: Howard University School of Law, Boalt Hall School of Law, Stanford Law School, Santa Clara University School of Law, UCLA School of Law and University of Colorado School of Law. The deadline for submitting applications is Sept. 1. "

KRT Wire | 08/08/2005 | Co-ed Boy Scout group part of broader effort to boost ranks: "Worried by a national membership drop of about 6 percent from 2000 to 2004 - to roughly 3.1 million - the group has also targeted Hispanics with new initiatives, updated its camping programs and modernized its merit badges.
But officials acknowledge they face an uphill battle because younger boys often prefer video games to outdoor activities, there is peer pressure against the group's image as a 'goody-goody' organization for boys only, and some adolescents resent having to wear uniforms.
'The challenge is competing with video games and a society that is a lot more dormant, a lot more individualistic,' said Renzo Martorella, of the Gulf Stream Boy Scout council in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. 'Peer pressure becomes an issue where it's bad to be good, and Scouting is a good gang.'
It has been a rough decade for the Boy Scouts."

Curator: UM [University of Missouri] needs minorities: "Walsworth floated a few ideas at last month's UM Board of Curators retreat in southeast Missouri. He'd like to offer full-ride scholarships to minority students to fill any unused classroom seats. He said he doesn't know how much unused capacity there is, but he said that systemwide, it could amount to the equivalent of a couple of thousand students.
Walsworth also said doctoral degree programs should be made available free of charge to minorities, plus monthly stipends provided for living expenses. Doctoral graduates then could be recruited as faculty, which could draw more minority students. 'I have talked to fellow curators, and they are all in favor of this,' Walsworth said this morning. 'What I said at the retreat and at the curators meeting they all concurred with.'"

PRESS RELEASE Top 100 Diversity Employers Announced: "The first ten on the Top 100 Diversity Employers list are 1- BMW, 2- Johnson & Johnson, 3- Goldman Sachs, 4- IBM, 5- Microsoft, 6- Citigroup, 7- McKinsey & Company, 8- Deloitte, 9- Coca-Cola, and 10- JPMorganChase. For the complete list, go to www.blackcollegian.com."

HoustonChronicle.com - Education chief Spellings defends No Child law: "The 3-year-old law has faced increasingly strident opposition among states that complain the federal government is encroaching on their right to educate children as they see fit.

"