Page 111 - Grade Level News Today

African-american students and white students. cnns special correspondent soledad obrien visited one non-traditional program to see how its playing out in the classroom. >> decompose or change over time. >> reporter: these ninth and tenth grade remembers learning about forensics at the academy of science and engineering which is inside nashvilles stratford high school. >> so the goal is to mimic what medical examiner might do? >> yeah. >> with the dead bodies and things. >> yeah, but we use chick...

Always want to know exactly where my kids are. i dont want to wait until the end of the year for somebody to say, oh, your childs not on grade level. i want to know, you know, every -- every couple of weeks, are my kids performing or not. and standardized tests and assessments like that are one way to do that. >> michelle rhee, thank you for coming in. we appreciate it. >> absolutely. the stock market opening bell just rang about an hour ago. lets check the numbers quickly. as you can see, not...

Cnns soledad obrien is working on a documentary "dont fail me" about the american education system. she found one school in tennessee to use innovative ways to close the achievement gap between black and white students. here is the report. >> and to decompose over time. >> reporter: these ninth and tenth graders are learning about forensics at the academy of science and engineering inside of nashville stratford high school. so, the goal is to mimic what a medical examiner might do with a dead bo...

Nashvilles stratford high school. so the goal is to men and women whak a medical examiner -- is to mimic what a medical examiner might do with these things? last year 75% of students here at this mostly african-american school tested below grade level. >> thats unacceptable, and we need to fix that. the academic rigor has to be raised. >> reporter: across tennessee, only 6% of african-american students are considered proficient in science. for white students that number is still low, 36%. the ac...

And ask who was your favorite teacher. usually people have an answer and smile with that answer. why at this time do so many teachers feel devalued in this country? why do you believe? >> well, the job of teaching is harder than its ever been. our achievement gap is staggering. almost every grade level and almost every discipline, african-american students, low income students, latino students trail behind their peers when it comes to looking at us internationally, the president has set a very a...

Siddous act. but this was a closed room. so youre not going to arrest somebody or charge somebody with that. now, of course, im sure there is a hire ar hierarchy at north and he may be facing disciplinary charges himself. he may lose his job, but hes not going to be charged with a crime. >> what about the fact that he did not do it during class? he said this is optional, no student is required to do this, and apparently, he warned the class ten-plus times, this is going to be graphic, trying to ...

That for a number of years as the superintendent. my starting point for this is that were doing a horrific job of educating our kids in this country, especially children living in poverty. the number runs believable, to me, anyway, as the father of three little girls in public schools, if youre a child living in poverty today, youre only 9 out of 100 can expect to graduate from college, 15 or 16 are reading at grade level by the eighth grade. were not going to fix that problem from washington bu...

Offered $719,000, thats right, in scholarships. >> the facts are the facts. these young men are going to college. >> the majority of students come to us reading below grade level and our job is to do our best to work with them each and every day. >> urban prep is the nations first all boys public charter high school. it has three campuses, wants to duplicate this across the country. congratulations to those guys. and now todays choose the news winner and i understand this was very close. the vot...

Challenged and kept up to their grade level. then they get to the high school level and they have even more challenges. so since we have an open enrollment lottery process at urban prep, our students are not selectively enrolled. we dont look at test scores or grades. we take any student who applies if we have room for the student in the class. we do have many students who come to us who are behind grade level. mr. williams here, was not one of those students. he has been a brilliant scholar sin...

Get it and if they dont get it, unemployment benefits certainly higher education and a poverty safety net, especially for homemakers. we dont value them and so if they are taking care of children at home, i think its very important that we provide resources for that. >> bill: okay. let me stop you there. you believe that the government should pay everybodys health care cost? all 320 million of us? >> well, i think we, the people, who pay our taxes into government, yes, i do believe our taxes go ...