Article Review-Week One

The Article “Desperate School Districts Are Eager for Stimulus Money” by John Mooney was interesting. The article talks about how schools in New Jersey are suffering and how there are talks about the stimulus plan that was recently approved could greatly help public education. The article talks about how the bill would provide an estimated $150 billion for education from preschool all the way through college. The article also talks about some of the ways that the money would be used in New Jersey as well as some of the advantages and disadvantages of this bill. Overall I found the article to be interesting. I think that it is important that school districts are being advised to be careful when it comes to this bill and what they are told they will receive. I also think that like mentioned in the article that just because they are getting this money doesn’t mean that they should stop worrying. Education is something that is very important and should also be something that should be thought about for the future.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/nyregion/newjersey/08stimulusnj.html?_r=1&ref=education

The article “Milwaukee-Area Schools Face Legal Action Over Church Graduation Ceremonies” was about how people are getting upset because students have voted to hold their graduation ceremony in a church. The article talks about how a national group threatens a lawsuit if the schools decide to have graduation at the church. The article also says that the students voted to have graduation at the church because it is not only big enough but is handicapped accessible. All signs of religion except one cross are covered during the ceremony. I think that it ridiculous that a national group is trying to sue school because they want to have graduation in a church. The students voted to have the ceremony there so it should not be a problem. It is no different than using any other building because the ceremony has nothing at all to do with religion and will not be mentioned. I also think that a law suit would be wrong because the main thing that should be focused on is that the students are graduating and hopefully continuing their education so their future will be bright. Schools should have the right to decided themselves without getting outsiders involved.
http://www.wisn.com/education/18695484/detail.html

The article “Study links children's lead levels, SAT scores” is about a Virginia economist who believes that the about of lead in I a student has to do with how well they perform on test such as the SAT’s. After doing many studies and research for many years he came to the conclusion that as lead levels dropped test scores rose and as they increased they test scores dropped. One argument for this story is that the non-school factors affect student’s achievements. I think that overall this article was very interesting. I think that it is hard to agree or disagree by just reading the article. Rick Nevin the economist had his findings published in an Environmental Research issue. I think that if I were to read more about his findings and research that I would be able to know more. I do think that it is interesting that he found this relationship when lead and the effects and reports of it have not been very high in the past few years.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-02-02-lead-SAT_N.htm

When looking through the different articles since there were so many to choose from I decided to choose three about education since I am an education major. I am very passionate about education and all of the issues that surround it. I found all three articles to be interesting because they were all about education but different aspects of it. I think that the first two articles relate more to each other because they both deal with money. One is about how there might not even be enough for there to be schools and supplies in one state while in another a group is trying to sue for money because of something as unimportant as where they are holding graduation. I think that the big issue is to make sure that we are finding some way to keep our students educated so that they can have hope for the future.