American Students

ARLINGTON, Va. - Some American high school students will be taught Chinese language and culture under a $1.4 million program financed by the Beijing government. The Advanced Placement program will be the second of its kind paid for by a foreign government (not counting Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi subsidy of Islamic schools in this country). A similar program underwritten by the Italian government was announced in September. China's ambassador to the United States, Yang Jiechi, and the president of the College Board, former West Virginia Gov. Gaston Caperton, announced the program last week.

Low graduation rates among African-Americans at Maryland's historically black colleges and universities present a major issue deserving of systematic analysis for solutions. This problem has been well documented by countless media outlets in HBCU communities nationwide, including in a recent Sun editorial. That editorial also challenged Maryland's HBCUs on the efforts of their faculty and administration to create and maintain cultural changes that can reverse the systemic trend of underachievement, which begins well in advance of any student's arrival at any HBCU.

HAVANA - American medical students in Cuba have returned to the United States, missing their final exams, over fears that U.S. authorities will jail them, fine them thousands of dollars or revoke their citizenship for studying medicine on the island. New Bush administration measures that took effect Wednesday severely restrict Americans' presence on the island. The Office of Foreign Assets Control, an arm of the Treasury Department, issued a letter June 25 saying the students could stay until Aug. 1. But many of the students didn't get the word in time.

Just days after the Anne Arundel County branch of the NAACP filed a complaint alleging "disparate treatment" of African-American students and teachers, school board members said the superintendent and school system should be recognized for their continuing efforts to address the matter. On Tuesday, Superintendent Kevin Maxwell, school system staff, community leaders and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People held what the sides called a productive meeting to discuss the complaint.

In the 1980s, private colleges priced themselves out of the market for most American students. This is the 1990s. It's the state colleges' turn.The Os could always trade Camden Yards for a couple of real pitchers.

THE FIRST major international study of reading in a decade shows that American 15-year-olds are about as proficient at reading as they are at mathematics and science. They're adequate but not very good - the definition of mediocre. In a new test given last year, U.S. teens performed about in the middle of the pack of 15-year-olds from 27 countries, most of them industrialized. Teen-agers in Canada, Finland and New Zealand significantly outperformed them. American students substantially outshone peers in only seven countries, among them Mexico.

The extraordinary event happened in a classroom at one of those much maligned Baltimore City public schools. In the first semester of the 1996-1997 school year, Lamar Shields' Spanish class wrote a children's book with a multicultural theme.On Monday, most of that class came on their own time - some even gave up lunch - to discuss the book, "The First Day of School." The 26 Baltimore City College students wrote the story themselves. Rodney Kitchen and Sean Dorsey handled the color illustrations.

The week before he left for Spain, Glenelg High School student Chuck Abbott began to dream in Spanish - not his native language. Also headed for Spain, Alysa Procida from Wilde Lake High wondered if she would be able to "effectively communicate what I want to say [in Spanish]." Angela Pipitone of Atholton High and Melissa Webster of River Hill High School bought flag T-shirts, Old Bay seasoning and crab-themed gifts for their host families in Spain. The sophomores and juniors were part of a group of 18 county students who visited Spain for 2 1/2 weeks in late June and early July.

Prescription drugs aren't the only things that have Americans looking outside the country's borders for lower prices. College textbooks also cost less in some parts of the world, and Web shoppers scouring the globe for better deals have publishers scrambling to keep foreign books out of American classrooms. American students spend an average of almost $900 a year on new textbooks and supplies, according to a Government Accountability Office report released late last month. Because textbooks are developed primarily for U.S. classrooms, Americans must bear the brunt of development costs for new textbooks, publishers told the GAO. "The cost of preparing textbooks is high," said Bruce Hildebrand, a spokesman for the Association of American Publishers.

"WOULD YOU like a Coke to drink?" my son asked his guests very slowly and loudly as he pantomimed a cool, refreshing thirst quencher.Asked why he was addressing the trio of young men in such a manner, my son nodded knowingly and whispered, "They're French."Foreign exchange students had arrived in Glen Burnie.The young men attending a Halloween party at our home last weekend were among the dozen students who accompanied their teacher on a three-week trip from France as part of a cultural exchange program between Glen Burnie High School and the Camille See lycee in Paris.

Anne Arundel County schools have not made sufficient progress in eliminating racial bias from its student disciplinary practices, according to a civil rights complaint filed by the NAACP. The complaint, filed with the civil rights office of the U.S. Department of Education on Friday, alleges that the numbers of African-American students referred for discipline and suspended have hardly changed since a similar complaint in 2004. That complaint led to an improvement plan agreed to in 2005 by the NAACP and the school system.

Maryland's schools have earned top rankings and plaudits in recent years. Yet as students from other countries continue to outscore their U.S. counterparts on international math, science and reading tests, even here the demands for lifting caps on the number of charter schools, tying teacher pay to student performance, and revising or abolishing teacher seniority and tenure rules have grown more insistent. Can any of these measures — or more traditional proposals, such as increasing education funding or reducing class size — propel the U.S. into the ranks of the top-performing nations?

Perched on her skates, Justise Fleming watched intently as her instructor spun around on the ice with ease. Then the determined 7-year-old from Patterson Park dug her right toe pick into the ice, reached back and swiveled in place. As her spin slowed she wobbled a bit like a tightrope walker on the high wire. But a sly smile of accomplishment spread across her face. A few feet away, 14 other girls tried the same two-foot spin. Most succeeded, but several plopped down hard. A few shrieks pierced the cold air of the Dominic Mimi DiPietro Family Skating Center in Patterson Park.

Maryland again ranked first in the nation in the percentages of high school seniors taking and passing Advanced Placement exams, according to a report released Wednesday by the College Board. Maryland surpassed longtime leader New York last year and has improved its numbers since then, with 24.8 percent of high school seniors earning a score of 3 or higher on one AP test compared to 23.4 percent the previous year. Maryland also became the first state in which more than 40 percent of seniors took at least one AP exam.

The number of minority students enrolling at the Naval Academy has increased steadily in recent years, a trend that college officials attribute to renewed efforts to recruit in urban areas. But the numbers fall below diversity goals, particularly for African-Americans, who make up less than 7 percent of the incoming class. The Class of 2012 that enrolled at the Annapolis military college this month includes 351 minority students - 28 percent - making it the most diverse freshman class in more than a decade, academy officials reported yesterday.

Alanna Jordan, 15, and Laetitia Mayran, 16, have played Monopoly twice since June - once at Alanna's house in Glenwood and once at Laetitia's house in Cergy-Pontoise, France. The two met through Columbia Association's Sister Cities program, which matches Howard County high school students with students of similar ages in either Tres Cantos, Spain, or Cergy-Pontoise. The American students, who have taken at least two years of French or Spanish, spent the first couple of weeks this month living with their match's host family abroad.

School surveys show that more American students are taking math courses such as algebra and calculus - but what are they learning? A kind of phony debate has sprung up about whether they need more basics, such as multiplication and long division, or more so-called creative applications such as problem solving. The sensible answer, according to the nation's math teachers, is both. If more students understand the basics, they can apply that knowledge to solving complex problems. And they can also help keep America globally competitive.

AMMAN, JORDAN -- Much has been said in the last five years about the lack of Arabic speakers in the United States, especially those willing and qualified to work for the federal government. After 9/11, America scrambled to find qualified linguists to help fight terrorism. Long overshadowed by the more easily learned romance languages, Arabic got short shrift at most American colleges and universities. With the rare exceptions of schools such as Georgetown University and Middlebury College in Vermont, which has been recognized for its intensive summer language program, American universities simply did not have advanced Arabic programs or the professors to lead them.

HAVANA -- As a little girl growing up, Erlyne Hyppolite wanted to be a doctor, but she always worried that an expensive medical degree was beyond her reach. Now the 20-year-old from Lanham is living in Cuba and on track to become a pediatrician in six years. And it isn't costing her a dime. Hyppolite is studying in the Caribbean country, which has been at odds with the United States for decades, under a Cuban government program that trains students from 29 countries to become doctors.

School surveys show that more American students are taking math courses such as algebra and calculus - but what are they learning? A kind of phony debate has sprung up about whether they need more basics, such as multiplication and long division, or more so-called creative applications such as problem solving. The sensible answer, according to the nation's math teachers, is both. If more students understand the basics, they can apply that knowledge to solving complex problems. And they can also help keep America globally competitive.