President Barack Obama’s dream of making the United States the number one developed country in the world by 2025 might take some time to be realized, based on an article in The New York Times.

A country’s rank depends on multiple variables, including the number of people with college degrees. According to the Times‘ article, the rate in which the United States is gaining college graduates gives little chance for Mr. Obama’s goal to be realized, at least not by 2025. The United States current rank is 12th in the world, with a rate of 41.6% of people ages 25 to 34 with Associate Degrees or higher. According to the article:

“From 2000 to 2009, the report noted, the percentage of adults with associate degrees or higher increased by just 3 percent. If that pace holds steady, by 2025 the United States will fall nine percentage points below the president’s goal, with 46 percent of adults holding college degrees.”

North Korea  is number one on the list with a rate of 57.9%.

The report does offer solutions in the form of a 10-step plan you can read below:

Teenagers in 2011 are taking fewer risks than their parents did with regard to drugs and alcohol, reports the New York Times Magazine. In 2011, 6.6 percent of high school seniors--as opposed to 9 percent in 1980-- frequently used marijuana. In addition, 72 percent of high school seniors in 1980 had recently consumed alcohol, while only 40 percent responded they had done so in 2011.

The data comes from the Monitoring the Future survey funded by the National Institutes of Health, and conducted at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. It surveyed 47,000 students.

The press release for the study states that in 2011, 50% of high school seniors reported trying an illicit drug at some time in their life. Among 10th graders, 38 % have tried an illicit drug, 31% did so in the past 12 months and 19 % in the prior 30 days.

According to the study, “synthetic marijuana” often called “spice” or “K2” was very popular among teenagers this past year, as well as easy to get. For a while, it was sold legally as herbal incense, until the Drug Enforcement Administration declared some of the chemicals in it dangerous and banned it for a year. One in nine high school seniors reported using it this past year.

Meanwhile, alcohol use among teenagers has fallen over the past ten years. “Over the past 20 years, from 1991 to 2011, the proportion of 8th graders reporting any use of alcohol in the prior 30 days has fallen by about half (from 25% to 13%), among 10th graders by more than one third (from 43% to 27%), and among 12th graders by about one fourth (from 54% to 40%)," reports the study.

Youth Radio took a look at how the legalization of marijuana impacts teen drug use back in 2010. Check out Sayre Quevedo's story on NPR.

Educators 4 Excellence (E4E), an organization that advocates within teacher unions for linking teacher evaluations to student test score data, recently launched a Los Angeles chapter, according to the Wall Street Journal.

It's a common story. In the face of massive budget cuts, school districts all over the country are laying off teachers. Often times young teachers without tenure status get hit with layoff notices before senior teachers, because that’s what the teacher union contracts dictate.

E4E teachers stand in opposition to this tradition, arguing that if a more recently-hired teacher achieves better results in terms of testing and student improvement than more senior teachers, they should not be the first to be laid off. 

After its inception a year ago, E4E quickly gained 3,500 teacher supporters, and their LA launch coincides with tough labor contract negotiations in the LAUSD teacher's union, according to the WSJ.

Evan Stone and Sydney Morris, the founders of E4E, were corp members in Teach for America, a non-profit organization that trains college graduates to become teachers in an accelerated program and feeds them into the nation’s neediest schools. Teach for America centers its method of teaching on collecting data from student assessments and tracking students’ improvement over the course of the year.

The fact that E4E received $1 million from the Gates Foundation, gained members fairly rapidly, and has expanded to L.A. reflects the fact that a contingent of educators want to see a change in how teachers are evaluated and given tenure. Yet, the WSJ reports that the organization has been criticized for pushing a divisive agenda while being funded by outside sources.

But the question remains, are test scores a fair analysis of a teacher's value at a school? If so, to what extent should they be used to determine tenure?

The following originally aired on KCBS

By: Rayana Pitts-Godfrey

When I was first applied to college, I expected it to be a life changing experience. But so far, it’s proven to be a living nightmare.

Most Monday mornings at the Community College I attend are the same. I walk into my first class and see disappointed faces. The teacher isn’t there. We never get an email explaining why. 8:30 soon becomes 9, and students grab their bags, share their disgust, and walk out.

With all the disorganization, I feel like I’m still stuck in high school, but the teachers are worse. I thought I would meet professors who are passionate about what they teach and dedicated to making sure that each student leaves their classrooms enlightened, but that hasn’t been the case.

The price of classes, books, and the many supplies are adding up, and honestly, I don’t think I’m getting my money’s worth.

Before I started college, I was genuinely excited about the many opportunities I would receive. But now, the only thing I look forward to is the end of class.

This story was originally published on L.A. Youth.

By Kristy Plaza

*To protect his privacy, the name of Kristy’s friend has been changed.

At my school same-sex couples are welcome to every school dance. The administration is trying to create an open-minded environment, but the reality is that not all students at my school are tolerant. There are guys who call my gay friend Tom* offensive things like “you stupid, sick fag” whenever they see him. He told me that even though now he doesn’t care what “a bunch of idiots” think, the attacks used to make him sad. But during high school he decided he wouldn’t let the words hurt him anymore. Whenever I hear stuff like this I think, “Why is there such hatred in this world?”

We’re seniors now, but people have been picking on Tom since middle school because of his high-pitched voice and how he giggles a lot. I was frustrated by how he was treated. Gay or straight, everyone can be hurt by words and we all deserve kindness and respect. I eventually realized that if I didn’t stand up for gay rights, then I’d be just as bad as those who make fun of people who are gay. So sophomore year I signed up for my school’s Gay-Straight Alliance—a club for gay and straight students to combat the homophobia gays face.

When my best friend, Angie, and I walked into our first meeting there were about 15 people writing on pieces of paper. The advisor, Dr. Brown, told Angie and me that everyone was writing questions that they were too embarrassed to ask out loud. I was surprised that kids were embarrassed to ask questions. Since it’s common at my school to hear students use “fag” and “that’s so gay” as an insult, it seemed like it took courage to join GSA. After the other students wrote their questions, Dr. Brown put them in a box and pulled out many that asked how someone should come out to their parents.

The debate on same-sex verses coed dorm rooms is starting to become quite a controversy. The Catholic Universities have placed a new ban on coed dorm rooms and facilities, including bathrooms. George Washington University teacher John Banzhaf attempted to challenge the Catholic University ban on opposite sex dorm rooms. According to gavelgrab.org, Banzhaf stated that the ban “violates D.C.’s Human Rights Act.”

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has taken his side on the argument as well. During a speech at Duquesne University Law School, Scalia stated that the university needed to “preserve the school's Catholic identity” by banning co-ed dorm rooms. He criticized Banzhaf’s arguments and beliefs and said he hopes that Duquesne will not yield to “this distorted view of what diversity in America means.”

My take on it:

I think the real issue here is fear. Fear that coed dorm rooms would cause students to start drinking and having casual sex. Unfortunately, who you’re in a room with has nothing to do with either. In college, if a student wants to drink or have sex, there are other ways they can do so. Separating the girls from the boys doesn’t cut off any of these activities permanently; it only makes them harder to do.

Who’s to say, if you separate the boys from the girls, the boys won’t just sneak out to get to the girls?
 

Robyn Gee, Turnstyle News

The Occupy Wall Street protests that started 13 days ago in New York City have spread rapidly beyond the streets of the NYC financial district. A sometimes muddled message -- aimed at financial institutions and corporations -- has moved people to occupy the streets of Midwest and West coast cities as well. But organizers are also using social media to rally the troops -- and it seems to be working.

According to Marisa Holmes of the Occupy Wall Street media team, Adbusters started "We Are The 99 Percent" Tumblr page in solidarity with the street protests. The site is a collection of photograph submissions from people around the world expressing their solidarity with the "99 percent" of America's population -- the statistic that protesters have adopted that is supposed to represent the struggling majority. Just a few days ago, the Tumblr page had around 20 photos, and now there are over 100.

Anyone can submit an entry to the Tumblr page by using a simple submission form. Some photos have hundreds of "Notes" -- which tipped us off that the Tumblr community is actively watching this site grow. Each photo contains a message and sometimes a personal story about how the individual is financially struggling --either with medical bills, employment, or education.

The photos are not high-quality. In fact, many look like they were taken with cell phone cameras or computer webcams. The messages are written on scraps of ripped out notebook paper, or scribbled in crayon. The mood of the site is not professional or artsy, but deeply personal.

Many photos depict college students or recent college graduates who were counting on college as a pathway to success, but find themselves crippled by debt. Although Turnstyle hasn't verified any of the claims of student debt, it's interesting to note that in 2007 - 2008, 52.9 percent of undergraduate students attending college full time had some kind of student loans, according to recent data from the National Center of Education Statistics. They published the following statistics:

In 2008–09, average tuition and fees, in constant 2009–10 dollars, at 4-year postsecondary institutions were $12,100. At public 4-year institutions, average tuition and fees were $6,400, compared with $15,300 at private for-profit institutions and $24,900 at private not-for-profit institutions.

Check out a sample of the photos on the Tumblr page on Turnstyle News.

A recent study by the Pew Research Center shows that women and men do not view a college education in the same light.

The survey conducted with 2,100 Americans shows that half of female graduates of four-year colleges consider the U.S.’s higher education system to be doing a good job, compared to only 37 percent of male graduates, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

In general, respondents to the survey believe that a college degree is more important to a woman’s success than a man’s. This is an accurate reflection of the data recently presented by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and aggregated in a Georgetown Study called, “The College Payoff,” which showed that women need Ph.D’s in order to average the salary that a man would receive with a bachelor’s degree. The article in the Chronicle reads:

More than eight out of 10 women with a four-year degree said their education had been "very useful" in helping them to grow intellectually, and roughly three-fourths of the same demographic group said college had enhanced their emotional development. The numbers were lower for their male counterparts: Only two-thirds of college-educated men said college had contributed to their intellectual growth, and even fewer—64 percent—believed it had helped them mature personally.

2011 statistics show that college students are highly dependent on their technological devices.

* ¾ of students say they wouldn’t be able to study without technology.

* In a study done at the University of Maryland, when asked to go 24 hours without technology, many students experienced symptoms similar to drug and alcohol withdrawal.

* Sophomores in college use Facebook the most.

Check out the infographic below for more information about students and technology by OnlineEducation.net.

The following originally aired on KCBS.

By Kazia Berman

Being a teenager is like having a spotlight on you all the time, which is something I fear. But sometimes being center stage is worth it.

My worst fears came true when I found myself sitting alone in front of my AP English class taking my turn in a frightening assignment. My classmates were going to tell me what they thought I’d be doing in fifteen years. I was the transfer student, the relatively new kid and I was mortified. I’ve performed in front of hundreds of people, but this was by far more nerve-wracking.

But as hands went up in the air and answers were thrown out, I started to forget my worries. Whether or not I’d had full conversations with some of these kids, they did know bits and pieces of me. Ideas like “film critic” and “actress” and “novelist” came from every corner of the room. And I’d love to be any of those things. They’d heard me read aloud and pose questions to the teacher. They’d seen me; I wasn’t invisible. Even if I was new, even if I was from another district, I was still a senior in AP English, awaiting the future like everyone else.