Education Category

BY MARY FINN

Students in Farwell High School were looking forward to their weekend today.  But first they had to make it through math class...

As teacher Lynette Leslie talks about factoring Samantha Donaldson says - and this is good news - she understands the material.

"I have struggled with math and I believe with the new electronics the smart board and the document camera I have the highest grade in this math class and I think it's because of the new electronics."

The grades aren't the only improvement that the school is seeing.  Over 50 school districts applied for Michigan's Project Re-Imagine program. Farwell was one of only 13 recognized through the program.  The award also brings grant money to the district.

Deanna Yarger Farwell High school principal says she doesn't know yet much they'll be receiving, but it's still good news.

"This is huge its very exciting this will be implementing a lot of technology taking some of our initiatives that have currently been started but advancing them in a lot faster pace."

 A faster pace and sometimes in a different way for students like David Akans.

"My family doesn't have a computer at home but it really helps when you're at school and you can use the internet to look stuff up."

Yarger says the school plans to improve technology by having laptops for every classroom and clickers for students to answer questions on the board from their desks.

The school also wants to expand its dual enrollment program. Under it; students receive a college degree before they've even gotten their high school diploma.

"We'll start doing some testing in their sophomore year and potentially they could take all of their courses 5 classes in the first second and third trimester and again their senior year and earn hopefully an associates degree before they graduate."

That's Ivy Whitmore: a senior who will have sixteen credits by the time she graduates. She says she thinks the dual enrollment program will catch on with other teens in her school

"I think they appreciate it and looking at us and seeing that we're getting ahead and we don't have to pay for the classes and we have all this help and the whole online experience I think people are going to try to make into these classes their senior year."

The part that parents will love is that all of the classes are free. A normal college class costs hundred of dollars and thousand for a full semester.

All 13 of the school districts a part of Program Re-Imagine will learn more about how much grant money they'll be receiving December 8th in Lansing.

For now Farwell and the other districts will carry on with their regular days.

For CMU Public Radio News, I'm Mary Finn.
BY LAURA WEBER
Michigan Public Radio Network

LANSING - Governor Jennifer Granholm is expected to make additional line-item vetoes to budgets by the end of the week. And she's calling for Senate Republicans to approve new revenue plans designed to fill cuts to K-12 schools, Medicaid and local governments. 

But Republican Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop says the Senate has approved its revenue plan, and Democrats can "take it or leave it."

[Audio]

Democratic House Speaker Andy Dillon unfolds a piece of paper outlining the Senate plan for new revenue.

"This is what they sent me - I mean this may be 10, 11 million dollars that they sent over. I'll send that back, but we've still got a problem," said Dillon.

The problem lawmakers are facing is how to restore hundreds of millions of dollars cut from the K-12 schools budget. Dillon says he's concerned that Republican Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop's "rhetoric is becoming firmer" against new revenue proposed by Democrats. Bishop says that Democratic "new revenue" really means "tax hikes." 

Governor Granholm says all parties have to make compromises.

"People have to be willing, semantically, to get away from the notion that any revenue is a tax," she says.

But Bishop says Senate Republicans will not vote to fill any additional cuts to budgets made by the governor.

© Copyright 2009, MPRN


   
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