At this year’s Education Nation Summit, reformers, policymakers, and funders were asked to look at education from a new perspective. A panel of students came before the audience to discuss their own experiences and their ideas on reforming the education system so they and future generations can receive a “world-class” education. Blogger Lisa Nielsen of  The Innovative Educator blog shared 20 key points made by the student panel in her article “20 Things Students Want the Nation to Know About Education.“

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Yesterday, YouTube released a new channel for educators at www.youtube.com/teachers. Due to some school district’s filters, many teachers were blocked from being able to use YouTube in their classroom without first converting files and downloading them to a media player. Now, teachers can easily and safely share online videos with their class that can not only help them enhance the class lecture with video, but also allow students to easily share videos in their presentations, study at home, and create videos in the classroom.

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If we needed proof that the shape of our economy has changed over the last ten years and that attending college has become a questionable investment, the Census Bureau has released numbers to back up our economic concerns.

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In Georgia, a plan to overhaul high school curriculums and move into career-based curriculums will be going before the state Board of Education this fall. High school dropouts are a common problem for many districts due to students not seeing the relevance of a high school course or boredom. Career-based curriculums are believed to engage students more because they can visualize the direct correlation from school to their lives.

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In a study, hungry students who had to resist the temptation of eating chocolate chip cookies didn’t score as well on focus and self-control tests as students who didn’t have to resist the chocolate chip cookie temptation prior to taking the test. In the NPR article, “Resistance Training for your ‘Willpower’ Muscles,” author of the new book Willpower, John Tierney, explains each of us only has a set amount of willpower for they day, so we should do our best to conserve it for moments that really matter.

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