WAMC: The Best of Our Knowledge # 919 (2008-04-28)

The Best of Our Knowledge

The Best of Our Knowledge # 919

(2008-04-28)

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ALBANY, NY (WAMC) - SERIES: THE LANGUAGE OF LEARNING/THE CALIFORNIA REPORT
TEACHING THE TEACHERS , Pt. 2 of 2 -
Political, business, and education leaders around the world are urging
greater attention to teaching children foreign languages to help bolster international competitiveness. But at the same time, the U.S. Department
of Education has adopted regulations for Limited English Proficiency, or
LEP students. The rules are intended to help recently arrived Limited
English Proficiency students learn English and other subjects, while giving
states and local school districts greater flexibility on assessment. California educates about 1.6 million, or nearly one-third of the nation's 5.1 million
English-learners. This affords California many opportunities to set trends
for educating English-learner students. That means what California does,
can be influential elsewhere. One-fourth of California's students in K - 12
are English-learners. And for children ages 3 to 5, that proportion swells
to a whopping 39%. This is important to keep in mind because California education officials are adopting what they say is the nation's first set of
statewide academic standards devoted to preschool English-language
learners. The standards, which the California State Education Department
calls, Learning Foundations, are part of a set of competencies for all
preschoolers in literacy, mathematics, and social development. We
conclude our special series this week focusing on best practices for
preparing teachers to educate that state's growing English-learner
population.
Kathryn Baron reports from California. (5:45)

THE STUDENT LOAN CRISIS -
We wanted to bring listeners up to date on one of the most important
stories right now in higher education. And one which is often overlooked
by other media. That's how the current U.S. economic downturn is
impacting student loans. This comes just as the lending season is kicking
into high gear. The U.S. Education Department is taking steps (in just 11
weeks) to develop an entirely new system of distributing federally guaranteed student loans in the event of a crisis in the government-backed system.
The two leading democratic education legislators, Congressman George
Miller of California, and Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, have made repeated pleas to the Dept. Of Ed to prepare a lender of last resort system.
This scenario would provide for the government to give money directly to a
group of outside guarantee agencies and their for-profit partners for
distribution to student borrowers. Just as we were meeting our final
production deadlines for this broadcast, the House of Representatives
approved legislation targeted at averting a student loan crisis. The bill
seeks to stem the departure of loan companies from the student-loan
program. More than 50 lenders have now reportedly left in recent weeks
amid the credit crunch that's rippled across the financial sector. The
Secretary of Education would be allowed to buy up loans that lenders
have struggled to sell to investors. This is also an attempt to reassure
students that the government will step in if private lenders continue to
drop out of the system. If there's any good news in all of this, at least
so far, lender departures do not appear to have resulted in a shortage
of student loans. Parents and students should obviously keep a close
eye on this situation.
Dr. Karen Hitchcock reports. (2:00)

ORIGINS OF LIFE - SCIENCE RESEARCH IN EDUCATION SERIES
IMPACT CRATERING AND ITS EFFECT ON THE ORIGIN AND EARLY EVOLUTION OF LIFE , Pt. 2 of 2 -
If one looks at the extensive impact cratering we can see on places like
the Moon and other planets such as Mercury, Earth does not look nearly
as battered. But appearances are deceiving. As we learned in last week's
story, Earth has been the target of about ten times more impacting objects
than our Moon, producing over 3-million impact craters. They range
anywhere from 1 kilometer in diameter, to more than 1,000 kilometers in diameter. It's just that we can't see the impact cratering on our own planet
due to Earth's crust movements, mountain building, erosions, and volcanoes.
So far, only about 160 impact craters have been found. Perhaps the most
widely know of these impact craters in the 180 kilometer diameter Chicxulub crater on the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico. Studies of the Chicxulub impact event, and the mass extinction event that occurred as a result 65-million
years ago, have demonstrated that impact cratering can affect the biologic evolution of a planet, as well as the geologic evolution of a planet. TBOOK
picks up the fascinating conclusion of this story with a highly noted
researcher in this field. Dr. David Kring is a Professor of Planetary Sciences
in the Lunar and Planetary Lab at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
Glenn Busby reports. (8:42)

The preceding material is supported by the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration.

**(Attention Program Directors and Listeners. For more information
about this story, or any of the other 140 stories featured in this exclusive
radio series, or if you would like to hear them again via your computer,
the website mentioned at the conclusion of the above segment is:
www.origins.rpi.edu.)**

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