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Posts tagged as “Education”

Magic Johnson Opens School In Atlanta To Give High School Dropouts A Helping Hand

 


ATLANTA – Basketball legend Magic Johnson has opened an education center in downtown Atlanta for high school dropouts.  The Magic Johnson Bridgescape center helps give those who have left school, or are at risk of dropping out, the opportunity to earn a high school diploma. The program, which has just opened its doors, is free and accepts students aged 14 to 20 years old.

GBN Quote Of The Day

“If you wanna earn, baby, earn, you gotta learn, baby, learn!”
— Mayor of Newark Cory Booker

100 Black Men Community School in Oakland Aims To Help Black Boys

  • Curtis Dright III, 5, lines up with the rest of his kindergarten class on the first day of school at The 100 Black Men Community School on Tuesday Sept. 04 2012 in Oakland, Calif. Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle / SFCurtis Dright III, 5, lines up with the rest of his kindergarten class on the first day of school at The 100 Black Men Community School on Tuesday Sept. 04 2012 in Oakland, Calif. Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle / SF
In the first hour of the first day of school Tuesday, the sixth-grade Oakland boy was sure he was in trouble for goofing off.  His teacher, Peter Wilson, had stopped his lesson in mid-sentence and turned his attention to the African American preteen, who now wore an uh-oh expression as he braced for a rebuke.  “Did you eat breakfast this morning?” Wilson asked quietly as the confused boy shook his head no. “Your actions are telling me you’re hungry.”  The teacher, also African American, then promised to bring fruit and granola bars the next day and returned to teaching. The boy’s behavior immediately improved.

GBN Quote Of The Day

“Few are too young, and none too old, to make the attempt to learn.”
–Booker T. Washington, educator, author, orator and first President of the Tuskegee Institute

Cleveland Student David Boone Worked Hard To Go From Homeless To Harvard

 david.jpgDavid Boone used to sleep on this bench in Artha Woods Park when he had nowhere else to go. Next fall, the senior at Cleveland’s MC2STEM High School is headed to Harvard.

CLEVELAND, Ohio — David Boone had a system.  There wasn’t much the then-15-year-old could do about the hookers or drug deals around him when he slept in Artha Woods Park. And the spectator’s bench at the park’s baseball diamond wasn’t much of a bed.
But the aspiring engineer, now 18 and headed to Harvard University in the fall, had no regular home. Though friends, relatives and school employees often put him up, there were nights when David had no place to go, other than the park off Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.
So he says he made the best of those nights on the wooden bench.
His book bag became his pillow, stuffed with textbooks first — for height, he says — and papers on top for padding.
In the morning, David would duck into his friend Eric’s house after Eric’s parents left early for work so he could shower and dress before heading to class at Cleveland’s specialized MC2STEM High School. David expects to graduate from there next month as salutatorian of the new school’s first graduating class.
“I’d do my homework in a rapid station, usually Tower City since they have heat, and I’d stay wherever I could find,” he said.
If you meet David Boone today, his gentle, confident demeanor and easygoing laugh betray no cockiness over racking up a college acceptance record that others brag about for him. He was accepted at 22 of the 23 schools he applied to — including Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Brown and Penn.
He also gives no hint of the often harsh and nomadic life he has led. The medical problems he faced as a boy, a splintered family, being homeless — it all could have left him bitter and angry.
But David says that giving up would have left him stuck in a dead-end life, so it was never an option.
“I didn’t know what the results of not giving up were going to be, but it was better than nothing and having no advantages,” he said. “I wanted to be in a position to have options to do what I want to do.”
David was born to a young mother, who divorced his father when David was a little boy.

Dora Anne Council, 76, Graduates From Gateway Community College

After starting school 42 years ago, 76 -year-old Dora Anne Council finally walked across the stage to graduate from college.

 
Thursday was the graduation day a Hamden grandmother has been looking forward to for 42 years.  Dora Anne Council, 76, was among the 870 graduates to receive their diplomas at Gateway Community College Thursday night.

SEED School in D.C. Shapes Scholars!

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(CBS)  A few miles from the White House in southeast Washington sit some of the worst public schools in America. The students there are mostly poor, mostly black, and their test scores are low. Only one in three finish high school; of those who do go on to college, just five percent graduate.
But right in the middle of this same area is also one of the most successful and innovative public schools in the country. Started in 1998, the school is called SEED. It’s the nation’s first urban public boarding school.
Ninety one percent of the students finish high school, and 95 percent go on to college. It’s a charter school that’s getting national attention. Admission is by lottery, open to any family in the district willing to take a chance. 

Texas Twins Top Class!

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They look alike, talk alike, dress alike…and they’re best friends.

But that’s not all twins LaTonya and LaToya Harris have in common. They’re also the top two graduates of South Garland High School class of 2010.  And they’ll even give their graduation speech together as valedictorian and salutatorian.
Although their parents say they’ve been baffled by the girls since birth, they can’t help but be proud of their twin prodigies.  So what’s the plan for next year?
The girls will begin their college careers (rooming together, of course) at The University of Texas – both on full scholarships.
article via www.thegrio.com