Beth Fertig
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The Clemente course provides low-income adults with college-level education about the arts, literature and the humanities — topics often lost in the race to get a practical degree.
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To move kids away from computer screens, a new wave of learning programs is emphasizing hands-on activities. Like building stuff.
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A new salvo has been fired in the fight over teacher tenure. A group led by former TV anchor Campbell Brown filed a complaint in New York state court, arguing that tenure laws are preventing the state from providing every child with the "sound, basic education" its constitution guarantees.
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Why are so many low-income and minority kids getting second-class educations in the U.S.? That question is at the center of the heated debate about tenure protections and who gets them.
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An apprenticeship program in New York City helps lower-income and minority students break into advanced sciences. For one, the love of the stars was motivation to tackle the tough field of astronomy.
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Ten years ago, a tree on a power line in Ohio touched off the largest outage in U.S. history. In New York City, many people were so relieved it wasn't another terrorism attack that in some places, a carnival atmosphere prevailed.
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This spring, the city's Department of Education issued its first guidelines about how teachers should navigate social media. The rules make it explicit: Teachers cannot friend or follow their students on Facebook or Twitter, but they can have professional accounts and pages for students to follow.
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The Obama administration is making some federal funds contingent on schools using student test scores and classroom observations to evaluate teachers. New York City recently sparked a controversy when it rated thousands of teachers with test scores alone — and then released those ratings to the public.
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Beth Fertig of member station WNYC discusses the Transport Workers Union, its pugnacious leader, Roger Toussaint, and the various pension, pay and health care issues that are at the center of the New York City transit labor dispute.
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The New York Fire Department releases dispatch tapes from the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, along with transcripts of firefighters' oral histories recorded after the event. From member station WNYC, Beth Fertig reports.