American Morning
Teaching 'Peace Corps' attracts recent graduates
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/05/29/art.greer.cnn.jpg caption="Molly Greer, in her New York classroom, says she now wants to make teaching her career."]
By Deborah Feyerick and Sheila Steffen
NEW YORK - Talking excitedly and pacing the front of her classroom, Molly Greer engages her students. "What are different paces you can go when you're reading aloud? Christina?"
"Low." "Okay, low or soft, yes."
On the first day of school, most of the kids in Greer's eighth-grade class could not read at a sixth-grade level. With summer almost here, it's a totally different story for these kids, who according to their school are expected to read at or near grade level. "It is an incredible thing for these students."
Greer graduated with honors from the University of Wisconsin. She arrived at PS 212, the multicultural magnet school in the Bronx, New York, two years ago with a degree in political science and a desire to change the world.
"When I found out about Teach For America," she said, "I realized that teaching would be such an incredible way to make an impact."
Teach For America is like a local Peace Corps serving some of the country's poorest public schools in inner cities and in rural areas. It has grown every year since its inception in 1990, sending 20,000 college graduates into the nation's neediest classrooms for a two-year commitment. This year, amid a tight job market, it is more popular than ever.
According to the organizations Web site, their teachers get paid the same salary and benefits as beginning teachers in their area and are paid by the local school district.
Banned from Harvard
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/05/19/costello.harvard.rotc.art.jpg caption="Some students want the Reserve Officers Training Corps to be recognized at Harvard, forty years after it was banished from campus."]
From CNN's Carol Costello and Ronni Berke
A small group of dedicated Harvard undergraduates could be America's future leaders; not in its boardrooms or briefing rooms, but on the battlefields of Iraq or Afghanistan.
For the moment, these young military cadets are fighting a different kind of battle. They want the Reserve Officers Training Corps, or ROTC, to be recognized at Harvard, forty years after it was banished from campus. One thing standing in their way: the U.S. military's policy of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" on homosexuals.
In April, 1969, student demonstrators set fire to an ROTC classroom and campus sentiment against the Vietnam War led to the Harvard faculty's banning the organization. Forty years later, the ROTC is still banished from Harvard.
Today, neither Vietnam nor the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan keep the ROTC off limits at Harvard. According to the University's student handbook, the military's policy on gays "...is inconsistent with Harvard's values as stated in its policy on discrimination."
The 29 Harvard students enrolled in the ROTC must take their training courses at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Their ROTC courses do not give them academic credit and they are not given financial aid to cover them.
Joe Kristol, a graduating senior and marine cadet, says it's time for Harvard to change.
"I think that what we're looking for is the college to separate the issues and be able to recognize and support ROTC on the one hand; on the other hand do whatever they want to protest policies they may not agree with, but not to punish the students and use them as their tool to make that political statement."
Kristol and three other cadets - Roxanne Bras, Shawna Sinnott and Christi Morrissey - say the policy is not in line with how most Harvard students feel about the ROTC.
Sinnott says most students actually do favor bringing ROTC back to campus. "I think a lot of that does have to do with the presence we've had on campus even though there's less than 30 of us, we're still able to provide that bridge between military and academia."
"For a lot of people you're sort of a novelty," she adds.
But not all students want the ROTC to return without a change in the military's policy on gays. Marco Chan, one of the co-chairs of the Harvard College Queer Students and Allies, acknowledges that the cadets are inconvenienced by the university's ban.
At least, he says, they have the choice to serve in the military. "What's not often covered is the fact that queer students don’t have that choice at all. There’s not a choice of oh, I guess I'll be inconvenienced and participate in this program. They simply can't."
Star power for education reform
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/05/06/costello.garner.art.jpg caption= "Actress Jennifer Garner is an artist ambassador for Save the Children."]
From CNN's Bob Ruff
There’s so much money in the Federal budget you’d think it would be easy for a worthy group such as “Save the Children” to get a chunk of it for early childhood education. But just three huge and growing entitlement programs eat up roughly half of what Congress spends. That would be Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Add in Defense and the latest bank bailouts and, well, you get the picture.
So what’s a worthy cause to do? The U.S. Branch of “Save the Children” thought a little star power would help. So they hired Hollywood TV and film actress Jennifer Garner, who’s starring in the current box office hit “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past”, to serve as it’s “Artist Ambassador.”
Garner, who is the mother of two young girls (her husband is actor Ben Affleck) was taken by “Save the Children” last month to an impoverished part of California to see up close what she and and the country are up against. One in six American children live in poverty, and that severely hurts their chances of getting a good education.
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