Education programs in Ohio’s university system will be undergoing some new measures to gauge how well they are training their teachers of tomorrow. This will make Ohio the “first state in the nation to grade colleges on how well they train teachers to help students succeed.” There are 15 measures to be implemented, announced Chancellor Eric D. Fingerhut, which will test teachers in both public and private universities. Ohio was one of only 12 states to receive federal funding from President Obama’s “Race to the Top” plan, which boasted a $4.3 billion budget. About $400 million was given to Ohio, which was then split accordingly amongst all schools.

A self-directed education is something that you normally see in a doctoral or master’s program. However, in elementary and middle schools there are “schools within schools” that are focusing on each student’s individual strengths. This focus of education seems to be working for a lot of kids, as it gets them focused and learning quicker and broadens their knowledge of subjects through a learning mode they like and understand. Other schools are trying to catch up all over Hall County, Georgia.

Low completion rates and limited funding are two major problems facing higher education today. Each of these issues influences the other; schools face low completion rates due to inadequate funding, and budget cuts cause graduation rates to fall. Larry Abramson of National Public Radio said that often, state governments reward schools with high enrollment, meaning the more students they have, the more money they receive. This theory ignores the fact that schools with the highest enrollment numbers do not necessarily have the most students graduating.

Online classes for elementary and secondary students are offered in 46 states across the country today. In 2006, the state of Michigan passed a law requiring all students to participate in some form of online learning before graduation. Several online schools have been created throughout the state, and additionally, many schools offer a blended ground-online curriculum.

Technology has taken a new turn in South Korea with the implementation of robotic English “teachers”. It seems to be taken straight out of a science fiction novel, but to the students, this is no imaginary scenario. The robots were developed by the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST). The robots were sent to “21 elementary schools in the southeastern city of Daegu.” This pilot project was “designed to nurture the nascent robot industry”.

With the DREAM Act essentially shelved and the Republican majority holding sway in the Senate, the Obama administration is looking for ways to shore up their immigration stance and gather support around them once again. The DREAM Act, in conjunction with increasing deportation of illegal immigrants with a criminal record, was part of President Obama’s strategy when he was elected into office. It would have allowed immigrants that were illegally brought here as children to become US citizens after they received a higher education or enlisted in the military. For many immigrants, some of them future college students, this was their only chance at a new life.

Eight percent of American adult web users are on Twitter, but only a small number (about 2 percent) of these people use the microblogging site on a daily basis, according to a survey recently conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. There are, however, interesting links between Twitter use and education level; survey results claim that while “college students aren’t flocking to Twitter…they’ve proven more likely to type the 140-character updates than most demographic groups, especially teenagers and young adults.”

If you have always been a dreamer, an artist, a photographer, love fashion or simply are someone who wants to use their creativity as a way to make a living, then an online art degree program is a great way to go. More than ever, all of these industries are online – from your favorite fashion magazine, to art forums and auctions, to a live gallery of recent photos to entice new customers. It all can be found at the touch of your fingertips. The same can be said of an online art degree that can cater to your passion of art and design. Not only do you get the same curriculum guidelines, but you also get real-world glimpses at what is going on in the art world as well as increased experience in navigating and understanding these new ideas as they happen.

It’s in the headlines all the time, it’s the topic of talks on lunch breaks amongst teachers and administrators and unfortunately, most students are a little concerned about it as well. The topic? Education budget cuts at the state and the federal level. It seems as if in a time of economic crisis, the liberal arts, music and elective programs get the first cut. With President Obama and the rest of the US concentrated on getting more students to compete at the international level for math and science, it seems as if the humanities are getting put on the back burner. It’s a worrying sign to those that want a degree in English, or philosophy, for example. Yet as the times change, technology is changing with them, and more people are turning to an online English degree in the face of these cuts.

The world of education is a vast one, with differing specialties and age groups. In all grade levels of education, however, specialized teachers are needed to help students that require extra attention due to a learning or behavioral disability. Some more common ones include speech or language impairments to the more severe cases such as traumatic brain injuries. A teacher that has taken online education classes, or even traditional classes, that offers a degree in special education opens the doors to many more opportunities in the job market. With more focus on teachers than ever before and the need for more as our population continues to grow, those that have added degrees give themselves a competitive edge over those that do not. Not only that, special education can be a very rewarding career, since the education of a student with disabilities relies solely with the teacher trained to help them.