J1 News

"This one is the second to deal with infographics, a growing focus in many classrooms."

"Some question if the current structure and goals of America's youth sports system, which is tailored to identify and develop its most elite athletes, does so at the expense of participation, fun and life skills. Yet, it might be the cost of competition in today's sports climate. A spot on the freshman team might depend on the level of preparation players received at a young and younger age."

"The product of high school media classes, in many cases a yearbook or newspaper, is no more the central purpose of a scholastic journalism program than winning a football game is to team sports. Instead, it's about the process, how students engage and work together, and the level of responsibility teachers encourage throughout."

"The trouble is that student editors actually do have that right. Americans young and old tend to remember that the First Amendment protects speech and the press. But Neshaminy officials and others seem to have forgotten what it protects free expression from: the government. When a public entity such as a school board interferes with the content of a student newspaper, it is engaging in exactly the sort of infringement the First Amendment prohibits. When student editors make decisions about the content of a newspaper, on the other hand, they are exercising their right to run a free and independent publication. The Pennsylvania School Press Association encourages student journalists to "recognize, uphold, and advocate First Amendment rights.""

"What if front pages were selected by newspapers' readers instead of their editors?  At NewsWhip, we're always interested in the news stories people are choosing to share - and how those stories differ from the normal news stories editors put on the front pages of big newspapers. So we ran a little experiment. On Wednesday morning, we gathered the front pages of leading newspapers in several countries. Then we used Spike to check the most shared stories from each one. A little work at our end, and we used those most shared stories to make new "people powered" front pages for each newspaper - giving the most shared story the most prominence, the second most shared the second most prominence, etc. We replaced headlines and pictures, though did not get into replacing story text and bylines. The results are pretty neat - maybe even thought provoking."

"Professor Robson suggests that schools ought to consider what issues they are really trying to address with these codes and critically examine whether or not policing attire will realistically accomplish those goals. "If teen pregnancy is the problem that you want to solve there are other ways to address that," she says. Many schools say that their policies have been constructed to promote respect and minimize disruption in the school environment. Robson would like to see schools focus more on discussion of respectful actions than spendi"

"This past school year, prestigious public school Stuyvesant HS conjured up a controversial new dress code that some thought amounted to: "Stop Dressing Like Sluts, Girls." Students said the code was arbitrary and affected female students more than males. And the student body became particularly upset when school security started hassling them even when they were dressed in accordance with the policy. Yesterday, fed up students staged a "Slutty Wednesday" protest. "They're, like, sexualizing our outfits by telling us what to wear. And like, I don't know, I guess it's just more important to learn in school rather than be like persecuted for your dress," one student told NY1."

"They, like most soon-to-be graduates, were palpably stressed about what would become of them. They've spent the past few years studying anthologies of narrative features and Pulitzer-winning reporting while simultaneously reading about mass layoffs-many of the career paths taken by those anthologized writers are no longer available to them. They have a lot of opportunities, but even more angst. Here are a few of the things I heard over and over from these young journalists, along with my replies."

"On Monday Fond du Lac High School Principal Jon Wiltzius told journalism classes new school guidelines require that all stories meet his approval before publication and are subject to rejection. "This is a reasonable expectation," Wiltzius said. "My job is to oversee the global impact of everything that occurs within our school and I have to ensure I am representing everyone and there was some questionable content." As of 6 p.m. Tuesday the students' anti-censorship petition posted at change.org had garnered 700 signatures. It specifically petitions Superintendent Dr. James Sebert and each signature is forwarded directly to the superintendent's email account."

"Pennsylvania students Brianna Hawk and Kayla Martinez won't have to worry about removing their "I ♥ boobies! (KEEP A BREAST)" bracelets anytime soon, as the nation's highest court declined to hear their school district's latest appeal to ban the accessories. The United States Supreme Court announced Monday that it would not take up Easton Area School District's appeal in the case, putting the issue to rest after more than three years. The school district filed its appeal to the Supreme Court in October after district and federal circuit courts ruled against its favor."

Quora Q & A

"Every public school district in New Jersey would be required to set guidelines on how its employees communicate with students online under legislation set for a vote in the state Senate today. The bill (S441) would require that the policy be written, and include "provisions designed to prevent improper communications between school employees and students made via e-mail, cellular phones, social networking websites, and other Internet-based social media." If it passes both houses and is signed by Gov. Chris Christie, school districts would have four months to adopt the policy."

"The new student of multimedia narrative may want to bookmark an archive on digital storytelling by Mark Berkey-Gerard, who teaches online journalism at Rowan University, in New Jersey. A Columbia Graduate School of Journalism alum who has won awards for innovative teaching, Berkey-Gerard logged resources and learning tools on a site called Campfire Journalism: Notes on Digital Storytelling"

"In a report just posted by Tufts' Civic Youth project, researcher Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg finds almost unanimous agreement among high school civics educators that, to be well-prepared for adult life, students need the ability to gather and produce credible information - the skill set we're accustomed to calling "journalism.""

"Last fall, the editors of Neshaminy High School's student newspaper, The Playwickian, said they would no longer use the word 'redskin' in their publication. Redskin is Neshaminy's longtime nickname and the name of its mascot. The school administration's overturning of the ban on the word has raised concerns about the rights of student newspapers and censorship. The students recently announced that the ban of the word will resume and litigation in the case is pending. Joining us to discuss this case and others like it are GILLIAN MCGOLDRICK, Editor-in-Chief of The Playwickian, Neshaminy High School's student paper, and FRANK LOMONTE, the Executive Director of the Student Press Law Center. Then we'll check in with GREG LUKIANOFF, the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), on free speech on college campuses."

"Aqeelah Mateen, left, Kelly Regan, center, and Johanna Perez-Fox, right, are the exceptions: while the world around them has divided along racial lines, they have stuck together."

"Cedric is one of a handful of honor students at Ballou, where the dropout rate is well into double digits and just 80 students out of more than 1,350 currently boast an average of B or better. They are a lonely lot. Cedric has almost no friends. Tall, gangly and unabashedly ambitious, he is a frequent target in a place where bullies belong to gangs and use guns; his life has been threatened more than once. He eats lunch in a classroom many days, plowing through extra work that he has asked for. "It's the only way I'll be able to compete with kids from other, harder schools," he says."

A short narrative feature. Here's how the writer describes it: ""I found the story while scanning the agenda for the school board in Broward County, Fla. I was intrigued about a program where women behind bars were allowed to be school mothers every other Saturday. I have always been intrigued about feelings I can't and won't feel. I'm not a mother and I'm not behind bars (always a good thing). So, I wanted to explore the complexity of being a prisoner mom. It took me some time to get access to the prison. But once I was given the green light, I had less than two hours to get all the reporting I needed done. I absorbed as many details as I could, focusing on one particular prisoner, and got the context I needed. The story ran a few days later.""