KCPT Reads provides children with valuable resources: one new, age- and culturally-appropriate book for every month they are enrolled in the program; a portable bookshelf (P.T.’s book house) to store and honor their books; pro-literacy posters for their bedroom and classroom; site visits by P.T. and other KCPT Reads volunteers; and essential professional development services for their pre-school teachers and family advocates. Often times, these books are the first books they can call their own.
The KCPT Reads literacy initiative is funded by individual gifts and grants to provide sessions and free books to an extended bi-state community including libraries, well-child clinics, Head Start, school districts, community centers and Parents as Teachers.
January’s KCPT Reads meeting was well attended. The next meeting is April 14, 2011 from 9:00 – 11:30 AM at KCPT, 125 East 31st Street, Kansas City, MO 64108.
For more information on joining this program, please call (816) 398-4321.
br> THIS WEEK: Friday, May 17, 2013 @ 7:30 pm
(Rebroadcast Sunday @ 11 am ) Photo Credit: Gawker.Com
TERMINAL MAKEOVERS: You’ve been listening for months now to the debate over whether Kansas City should change the design of KCI airport from a three terminal to a one-terminal design. Well what’s been the experience in other cities that have splashed out lots of money on new airport makeovers? This week the Kansas City Star examined that issue and in every comparable city they examined, passenger traffic is down and so are aircraft departures.
CURFEW STALLED: Have plans for a 9pm year-round teen curfew in Kansas City fizzled out? A vote on the measure was delayed yet again at City Hall this week.
KCMO SCHOOL TAKEOVER: Missouri lawmakers this week drop on to the Governor’s desk legislation allowing an immediate takeover of the Kansas City, MO district. Will Governor Nixon sign the measure in to law? And what impact will it have on the beleaguered district?
GORDON PARKS: The parents of more than 200 elementary school children at a Kansas City charter school are forced to a find a new place to educate their kids this week. The Missouri State Department of Education is shutting down Gordon Parks Elementary School after 13 years due to low test scores.
LOCKED IN BASEMENT: The Jackson County Prosecutor’s office this week charge a local couple with keeping their 9-year-old girl locked in the basement for months because she lacked bladder control. Authorities say the 9 year old was sleeping on a mostly deflated air mattress near an exposed sewage pipe. An interior door leading to the basement was secured by a lock and chain and had been outfitted with an alarm that sounded when the door was opened.
AMTRAK: Is Kansas City about to lose its Amtrak rail service to St. Louis? The twice-a-day train is in jeopardy according to a story this week in the Kansas City Star. The issue taxpayers spend $1.5 billion a year to subsidize passenger train travel, and the federal government — weary of a four-decade effort to keep the company afloat — wants to move more of Amtrak’s costs onto states and riders. At a cost of $9,600 per ride to operate the train, Missouri taxpayers would be on the hook for $8.5 million a year.
LIBERTY HOSPITAL LAYS OFF 129 EMPLOYEES, BLAMES OBAMACARE: 129 workers at Liberty Hospital are getting their pink slips. They are being eliminated this week as part of an effort to reduce expenses by $20 million. Devastated employees including nurses and some senior managers left the hospital in tears after being told to collect their belongings.
GOOGLE EVERYWHERE: Gladstone, Grandview, Raytown, Shawnee, Olathe. Plus, Austin, TX and Provo, UT. The list keeps growing by the week. Are leaders in KCK and KCMO feeling they’ve lost their specialness now that the internet giant is inking “special” deals with all these other cities?
From Baldwin City, KS to Carrollton, MO students from all over our region put their pencils, makers, crayons, and creativity to paper for the 2013 KCPT PBS Kids GO! Writers Contest. Young authors in kindergarten through third grade mailed their illustrated stories to KCPT this spring. Last week, judges from local libraries, and children’s literacy experts read and gave points to each story based on its creativity, story structure, and illustrations. The top three stories from each grade will receive special PBS Kids GO! Writers Contest goodies, and the first place winner from each grade will have their story submitted the national contest.
Kindergarten
1st Place – The Best Snowman Ever by Ben LaCroix
2nd Place – The Baby Fox by Adele Van Lieshout
3rd Place – Mom Says by Isabelle Connealy
First Grade
1st Place – The Tale of the Talking Snake by Charlotte Tigchelaar
2nd Place – The Car by Max Ramirez
Second Grade
1st Place – Cleverina’s Fairy Adventure by Gracelynn Xia
The school year is winding down for most students, but for school administrators it is prime time for hiring teachers for the fall.
Did you know that 30 percent of new teachers quit after three years on the job and half of them quit the classroom within five years? The biggest reason for leaving? According to the Gates Foundation, the answer is not pay, though I’m sure most teachers wouldn’t say no to a a salary increase, and it’s not because they don’t like teaching anymore. The biggest reason, the Gates Foundation claims, is they don’t like the school they’re teaching in because it is a bad fit. Enter: myEDmatch.com.
If online dating works so well for people looking for love and happiness, can it work to match teachers with schools? That is the premise being pioneered by two local leaders in education in Kansas City: former Kauffman Foundation Vice President Munro Richardson and Teach for America Kansas City head Alicia Herald, who both quit their jobs to launch this job matching start up.
Where in the world am I? Apparently, many students in the United States have no idea.
In a 2006 Roper survey, it was found that students in the U.S. fail to understand their world and their place in it. Of Americans aged 18 to 24, seventy percent could not find Iran or Israel on a map. Nine in ten couldn’t find Afghanistan on a map of Asia. And 54 percent were unaware that Sudan is a country in Africa.
The 2002 project also surveyed 18- to 24-year-olds in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Sweden, and Great Britain. The U.S. trailed every other country in that survey, except Mexico, which did only slightly worse. Even for U.S. geography, the survey results are just as dismal. Half could not find New York State on a map of the United States. A third of the respondents could not find Louisiana, and 48 percent couldn’t locate Mississippi on a map of the United States, even though Hurricane Katrina put these southeastern states in the spotlight in 2005. About 11 percent of young citizens of the U.S. couldn’t even locate the U.S. on a map. The Pacific Ocean’s location was a mystery to 29 percent; Japan, to 58 percent; France, to 65 percent; and the United Kingdom, to 69 percent.
In order to spark interest in the subject, National Geographic hosts the National Geographic Bee to encourage teachers to include geography in their classrooms, spark student interest in the subject, and increase public awareness about geography. Schools with students in grades four through eight are eligible for this entertaining and challenging test of geographic knowledge.
This month marks the 25th anniversary of the National Geographic Bee, a nation-wide geography competition in Washington, D.C. for students in 4th through 8th grade. In that quarter century, about two percent of the competitors are girls and only two girls have won the $25,000 first prize scholarship. Education reporter Lindsey Foat sat down with two local finalists Prani Nalluri and Aviral Misra.
The National Geographic Bee will be shown on KCPT the day after the competition, Friday, May 24 at 1 p.m.
