Education News

According to a press release, ISU will host week-long summer workshops for teachers from Idaho, Wyoming, northern Utah, northern Nevada and eastern Oregon with follow-up sessions during the school year. "The program will serve isolated and neglected rural teachers,"

Rocky Mountain College did a study several years ago and learned that students who were involved in small groups on campus were more likely to stay in school, Moak said.

Rocky incorporated that idea into its core curriculum for freshmen. Freshmen are divided into groups of 20. Those groups have several classes together so they get to know each other well. That program seems to appeal to team-oriented millennials.

"The bottom line," Donovan said, "is Conrad is interested in getting technology into our schools so our children have the same advantages … as in urban areas like Los Angeles or New York."

The 7-year-old program, which runs for four weeks each year, pairs more than 450 Southwest pilots with 18,000 pupils around the country, many in low-income areas.

As a whole, these recommendations support a subtle shift of state support for public higher education toward instruction of undergraduates, which is a strategy for increasing productivity.

Montana is turning the economic corner and if we are to finish the job, early education is going to play a major role. Without effective education Montana will not be ready for new challenges.

“Through partnerships among teachers and scientists and students, we can demystify science and the process of scientific studies,” Brewer said. “These partnerships may be the best hope for moving toward an ecologically literate public.”

"I tell them that being a role model means not just being it in Head Start, but in general in the community," she said. "It just makes kids aware that there’s more than them."

The experience will hopefully also foster a long-lasting interest in volunteering, added Terry Hanson, the Early Head Start program director.

Lack of change, they say, will keep huge numbers of students heading for remedial college work or jobs for which they’re unprepared.

"Youth entrepreneurship education programs also serve to inspire leadership and confidence in students where such character traits may go unrecognized and underutilized,"