Chris Anderson introducing TED2012: Full Spectrum yesterday in Long Beach, California. James Duncan Davidson James Duncan Davidson/TED
8.30am: And we’re back!
Day 2 of TED2012 is just about to kick off and the first speaker, the completely kick-ass Regina Dugan has just taken to the stage and exhorted us all to be nice to nerds!
So I will: hello nerds! Welcome back.
8.41am: Scientists and engineers change the world, says Dugan.
Never heard of Dugan, well she’s one impressive lady scientist…
Regina Dugan directs the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency , the DoD innovation engine responsible for creating and preventing strategic surprise.
And what’s DARPA?
It prevents strategic surprise from negatively impacting U.S.
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Many of Government’s flagship academies and free schools reported turning away up to 1,000 children each following a surge in applications.
Nationally, an estimated one-in-six pupils – almost 100,000 – will be rejected from their first choice and around one-in-20 will fail to get into at least three schools named on application forms.
Admissions advisors said that the move was likely to result in a rise in the number of parents seeking legal help to lodge official appeals.
It is likely to be driven by increased use of lottery-style admissions systems that have been introduced by some schools – particularly academies and free schools – to stop middle-class families buying property nearby to secure places.
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From The Connecticut Mirror: Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has grown impatient waiting for small school districts to team up with nearby systems to conserve costs. He wants the state to significantly scale back the school aid it sends towns such as Canaan, which spends $22,450 for each of the 139 students it educates each year, the most expensive per-student spending in the state. The state sends $78.8 million each year to the 49 towns with fewer than 1,000 students. The Malloy administration says that $12.5 million of that is being sent to towns that are spending significantly more than what the state deems acceptable: $15,400 per student.
City officials wont be heading to Albany this week after all to petition State Education Commissioner John King to restore federal funding for 33 struggling schools.
King cut off the funds, known as School Improvement Grants, last month when New York City failed to settle on new teacher evaluations by his end-of-2011 deadline. Nine other districts lost their funding for the same reason.
All asked for hearings to appeal Kings decree, and those hearings were set to begin last Friday. City officials were due to make their case for the funds Wednesday morning.
But starting just hours after the news broke on Thursday that the state and its main teachers union, NYSUT, had agreed on a framework for new evaluations, all of the districts asked for their hearings to be adjourned, according to an SED spokesman, Dennis Tompkins.
Its not clear exactly how the states evaluations deal would change what districts planned to say during their hearings.
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Nick Clegg has pledged to deal with the “ticking time bomb” of teenagers who are not in work, school or training.
The Deputy Prime Minister announced a £126 million scheme to get 16 and 17-year-olds back into employment or education.
The initiative is part of the coalition’s Youth Contract scheme, announced last November in a bid to tackle youth unemployment.
Under the new initiative, charities and businesses will be invited to bid for contracts worth up to £2,200 to take young people on.
They will receive an initial payment up front, and more money when the youngsters show progress.
At least 55,000 16 and 17-year-olds “Neets” – not in education, employment or training – who have no GCSEs at grades C or above, are expected to benefit.
Mr Clegg said: “Sitting at home with nothing to do when you’re so young can knock the stuffing out of you for years.
“It is a tragedy for the young people involved – a ticking time bomb for the economy and our society as a whole.
“This problem isn’t new, but in the current economic climate we urgently need to step up efforts to ensure some of our most troubled teenagers have the skills, confidence and opportunities to succeed.”
This group of teenagers has been singled out because evidence suggests that unemployment early on can have a permanent effect on earning potential.
By the age of 42, someone who has been frequently unemployed as a teenager is likely to earn 12%-15% less than their peers, the Department for Education (DfE) said.
The announcement comes less than a week after the latest unemployment figures showed that the numbers of 16 to 24-year-olds not in work increased by 22,000 to 1.04 million in the three months to December.
The last Neets figures, for the third quarter of last year, showed that more than a million 16 to 24-year-olds (1,163,000) – almost one in five – were considered “Neet”.
Speaking on Sky News, Mr Clegg said: “I think it is incredibly important that, at that very vital moment in someone’s life, when they are in their teens, that they don’t lose the ambition and the hope and the optimism about working.
“Because once that is lost, all the evidence is that it has a long-term scarring effect and makes it very difficult for youngsters to move into stable employment as adults.”