There is a major debate on the significance of getting a technical college degree and whether it enables one to get a job. More importantly, people are interested in knowing about the academic significance of these degrees. Technical colleges, which are more popularly known as community colleges, offer two-year associate degrees as compared to four-year degree at standard colleges.

Aside from the difference in duration of education, technical colleges are also distinguishable as they offer specialized degrees, diplomas and certificates. A student can enroll at a technical college after completing high school. Spending two years will earn one degree in aviation, mechanics, electrical engineering, manufacturing, and dozens of other fields.

In these two years of education, the first six months are for the basic training in science, mathematics, physics, chemistry, mechanics and other fields. After the first semester, one has the choice to select a particular field of education. The method of instruction at a technical college differs from a traditional one as it pays more attention to experiment than course work.

A student enrolled at a technical college will be spending more time in the laboratory, workshops, warehouses and other establishments to gain experience needed for the degree or certificate.Academic course work is also included in the associate degree but generally with a ratio of 40% to 60%.

Some courses involve an equal ratio of academic and laboratory/workshop depending on the requirements of certification or diploma. Admissions in technical colleges follow the same route as traditional four-year institutions. A student is eligible for admission after completing a high school diploma. SAT or ACT scores along with accredited GED scores are required for admission.

Our Minneapolis technical school also offers an opportunity for home-schooled students to take admission as long as their studies have followed an accredited arrangement with their local school district. If a student is applying for a single course rather than a certificate or diploma then he or she will not need these accreditations.

According to data extracted from National Center for Education Statistics, there are 1,045 community colleges in the United States with many states having dozens of them. This makes it easier for students to seek admission at an institution that is closer to their home.

Some community colleges do not offer residential facilities so it is highly important that a student makes accommodation arrangements on one’s own. Tuition fees and other charges are taken at the start of the academic year. These charges can be as much as ten times lower than that of their traditional counterpart. Affordability and shorter duration has made these colleges ideal for those students who do not want to commit to a four year degree or do not have the financial means to support their education.

Employment rates for technical college graduates are at par with traditional colleges and higher in some cases. Specialized courses in aviation, mechanics, dentistry, medicine, and chemical engineering enable students to find employment rather quickly given the high demand in these sectors. On an aggregate scale, the specialized education in technical colleges can be good for those who want to join workforce in the shortest possible time.

“It’s time for Belmont to change and to recognize that we have gay students, faculty and staff,” said Curb, who is also a trustee emeritus at Belmont. “I want to see this board and the school leadership act like Christians.”

It’s probably the harshest criticism that has been leveled at Belmont University to date. And there’s been quite a bit. Students and alumni have protested outside of Belmont buildings. The Faculty Senate passed a resolution saying that employees shouldn’t be fired on the basis of sexual orientation. And local columnists have said that the school is fostering a culture of intolerance and discrimination, cloaked in a misinterpretation of religious values.

But the power of having a major donor to the University call attention to the LGBT problem on campus is pretty significant. Nothing quite catches the ears of administrators like a man with a $10 million wallet.

Curb went on to add that Belmont University has a choice to make about what kind of school it wants to be. Does it want to be the type of school that caters to a national audience, and builds a reputation that puts it among the elite schools of the country? Or does it want to be a school, ala Liberty University or Regent University, much more concerned about a stiff commitment to conservative religious values than on a national reputation for success?

“Belmont has to decide whether they want to be a national recognized university — particularly with their school of music business — or they want to be a church,” Curb said.

That underscores a very important point. Nobody is denying the right of Belmont University to hold religious values. Indeed, some of the best schools in the country have deep religious traditions that frame their identity. But the question remains: Is Belmont the type of school where gay Christians, or those straight Christians who believe that homosexuality is not a sin, can feel comfortable? The University should say, so that faculty and staff know what’s expected of them, and that students (both current students and incoming students) know what to expect on campus.

Photo credit: Belmont University

Millionaire Donor to Belmont University: Christians Don’t Fire Gay Employees

The Child Nutrition Act, legislation that would improve both the quality and accessibility of school lunches, has been kicking around in Congress for months on end. While the Senate passed its version of the school lunch reform bill — the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act — back in August, the House has yet to vote on the bill. That will change this Wednesday, December 1st, as representatives will finally weigh in on the legislation.

The House can do a number of things with the pending legislation. For one, it could neg the bill entirely, meaning kids wouldn’t see any increased funding for school lunches. The House could also delay the bill through a motion to commit, which would essentially kill the legislation for the rest of the year. With Republican lawmakers taking control of the House of Representatives this January, it’s unlikely that increased funding for school lunches will get enough support from Congress next year. Unless the House votes in favor of the Child Nutrition Act this week and sends it to President Obama’s desk for approval, this may be the last chance in the foreseeable future for federal school lunch reform.

If the House does indeed give the Child Nutrition bill the thumbs-up, it would usher in a number of changes to school lunches. The bill provides $4.5 billion over the next 10 years to child nutrition programs, namely the federal school lunch program. The extra dough promises to expand the number of students enrolled in free and reduced-cost school meal programs and improve entrees’ nutritional quality. It would also raise the federal reimbursement rate for school lunches by six cents per meal, the first time Congress will have increased the rate since 1973. The Child Nutrition Act also aims to expand farm-to-school initiatives.

While it’s pretty obvious that school lunch is in desperate need of reform (“bagel dogs” are a regularly appearing entree in some lunch lines), the Senate’s iteration of the bill aims to pay for the improvements by slashing future food stamp benefits, a move that unfairly robs Peter to feed Paul. It’s a funding measure that understandably has many folks on the fence about the Child Nutrition Act.

You can help push forward school lunch reform by signing the Environmental Working Group’s petition asking the House to vote in favor of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act. You can also ask lawmakers to fund school lunch programs without cutting future food stamp benefits by signing the Food Research and Action Center’s petition here.

Photo credit: bookgrl via Flickr

Why School Lunch Reform Must Pass This Week

“This is a pretty significant development. It’s historic. The TDSB as an entity has never taken this on system-wide, so it’s having huge ripple effects,” says Michelle Cho, student equity program advisor for the TDSB. “We know that homophobia and transphobia have existed in our schools for a long time. It’s just being highlighted much more in the media now. There’s a real crisis that’s gone unnamed in our schools. This needs to be talked about.”

The Positive Space campaign will see middle school and secondary teachers trained by a positive space representative in order to become official points of contact for students suffering with issues stemming from homophobia or transphobia. According to Cho, the new initiatives are a first in Canada. There has never before been a system-wide promotion of gender-based violence prevention.

“[Students] will be able to contact this person in the school and look for support,” says Vladimir Vallecilla, a gender-based violence prevention work for the school board. “Obviously, that teacher wouldn’t have the expertise of a principal or social worker, but they will be trained to direct that information to the social worker or the administrator, and then to our office for greater school-wide support.”

But Positive Space isn’t the only campaign being rolled out by the TDSB. They are also unveiling the Peer Support Network, an idea based around education that will see students in grades eight, nine and ten will be trained as peer educators through the TDSB.

“The idea is to teach students how to make creative media and facilitate workshops for other students on gender-based violence prevention,” says Vallecilla. “An example would be taking images from current media, Disney, pop culture, then discussing and breaking down how gender has been socialized into students.”

Lastly, the school board is starting a campaign that will recognize gay-straight alliances that are making a positive impact. There are currently twenty-five GSAs in Toronto, give or take a few, and the hope is that highlighting great ones will create interest in starting new alliances.

“It’s addressing gender-based violence. That means every teacher, support staff member, guidance counselor, teaching assistant, administrative staff member, principal or vice-principal must report any incident that can be viewed as unsafe to the school community, which now includes homophobia, transphobia, sexual harassment or sexual misconduct,” says Michelle Cho. “At the end of the day, this isn’t just about policies. There are people being affected.”

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Toronto School Board Unleashes Three Groundbreaking Pro-Gay Initiatives

Unfortunately, Michael Jones reports on Gay Rights that this particular wedding announcement cost her a job. Is her employer just really anti-marriage? Not exactly. The issue at stake was that she was getting married to another woman.

Her employer, the Catholic Benedictine University in Springfield, IL, was not pleased to discover that “here come the brides” was the name of the game at Tadlock’s wedding. While Tadlock has been out about her sexual orientation since the beginning of her job, and many of her coworkers knew about the upcoming nuptials — and the sex of her intended — and had offered their congratulations, the higher-ups alerted to her plans via wedding announcement weren’t so happy for her.

Tadlock was pushed to take early retirement, a move which would have allowed the University to save face, but she had no intention of helping them shove her out of a job over her marriage. So, effective October 28, Benedictine University went ahead and gave her the boot anyway, writing, “By publicizing the marriage ceremony in which she participated in Iowa she has significantly disregarded and flouted core religious beliefs which, as a Catholic institution, it is our mission to uphold.”

Ironically, Benedictine University has an employment non-discrimination policy which includes both sexual orientation and marital status. Huh … so, if they just stuck to their own policies, we wouldn’t have an incident of intolerance and homophobia to report on?

Though the University higher-ups can’t stand hearing about a same-sex employee, most of her coworkers are supportive, with one woman even resigning in protest of the school’s action. Thanks go out to Maureen Lavin for making it clear that if her employer didn’t want Tadlock just because she has a wife, she didn’t want her employer.

Tell Benedictine University and the Diocese of Springfield to uphold their own anti-discrimination policies, apologize, and give Laine Tadlock her job back. If she’ll have them.

Photo credit: CornellMare

Woman Fired Over Same-Sex Wedding Announcement

But if a school holds an anti-bullying assembly, and the students do nothing more than just laugh it off or make jokes about it, does it have any real teeth?

That’s a question that has particular relevance today, with the word that a 14-year-old Pennsylvania student committed suicide by throwing himself in front of a tractor trailer to escape bullying at his school. The day before his suicide, the school had held an anti-bullying assembly, but as The Daily Item reports in their coverage of the suicide, many students just laughed the program off and wasted the opportunity to really look at the consequences of bullying.

And now another student is dead.

That student is Brandon Bitner, from Mount Pleasant Mills in Pennsylvania. Over the weekend, Bitner walked about 13 miles away from his home, to the intersection of two busy highways, and ran in front of a tractor-trailer. He left a suicide note, and now his classmates are weighing in with commentary on why Bitner was driven to suicide.

“It was because of bullying,” friend Takara Jo Folk wrote in a letter to The Daily Item. “It was not about race, or gender, but they bullied him for his sexual preferences and the way he dressed.”

Other students sent letters to The Daily Item saying that the school district, Midd-West School District, has typically not done enough to combat bullying and homophobia inside schools.

“Nothing is done,” said former Midd-West student Erin Barnett. “Bullying should be addressed in every school, and should have a punishment.”

The Superintendent of the Midd-West District, Wesley Knapp, said that the district does take bullying seriously, and that the principal at Bitner’s school, Cynthia Hutchinson, feels very strongly about fighting bullying. That’s partly why the school had an official assembly to discuss the subject.

But again, the question comes up: if students aren’t taking anti-bullying assemblies seriously, are they any more than just a waste of time? And who should be held accountable to make sure that anti-bullying programs are constructive, and not something that students can just laugh off as unimportant?

Right now, the Midd-West School District’s Web site has nary any resources on it to discuss bullying in schools. Instead, there’s just a quick nod on their mission statement to providing a safe space for all students.

“Our schools’ effective learning environments require safety, discipline, respect, organization and high expectations for all,” the district says. Great words, but they also require action, too.

Friends of Brandon Bitner have created a Facebook page for him here, to memorialize him. He was a talented musician with a gift for the violin, and judging from the number of letters that people sent speaking out about his death and bullying in local schools, it’s clear he made a huge impact on a number of people.

Take a moment to write the Midd-West School District, and urge them to place a higher priority on combating bullying rooted in homophobia. No student should feel like their only option to escape bullying is suicide. And students should not be allowed to just laugh off anti-bullying programs as if they don’t make a difference.

Photo credit: juliejordanscott

After Students Laugh Off Anti-Bullying Assembly, a 14-Year-Old Commits Suicide

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Article directories can be a great source of quickly locating information for those who are looking, or have already started building their own websites and blogs. Another fun way to make some extra cash would be to write for these directories. There are a lot of people that need someone to write for them to help get their business and their articles seen. Researching and finding a company that has a good rep to work for may take some time, but it can be fun, easy, and it’s extra money, right? One of the best ways to start searching for all different types of information is to write for these directories. Use the articles that are out there to help you with your research. They will not disappoint you in what they’re able to find and can then help you with writing your articles.

But for at least one Oregon college student, the student teaching process seemed to be a reminder that in some school districts, it’s still not OK to acknowledge the existence of LGBT people.

Head on over to Beaverton School District, in the suburbs of Portland. There, Seth Stambaugh, a 23-year-old graduate teaching student at Lewis and Clark College, was told by school district administrators that he was no longer allowed to student teach in the district. They told him he had made “inappropriate” comments, and that he would have to find another school district to student teach in.

So just what were those “inappropriate” comments? According to the Portland Mercury, Stambaugh was asked by a student whether he was married. Stambaugh, openly gay, said that he was not, adding that it would be illegal for him to be married in the state of Oregon because he “would choose to marry another guy.” Asked by the same student whether that meant that Stambaugh liked hanging out with men, Stambaugh replied “Yeah.”

They say that honesty is the best policy. But in this case, a parent in the school district caught wind of the conversation and went to school administrators telling them that if they didn’t remove Stambaugh from the classroom, the parent would remove his child.

So the school district called up Stambaugh and Lewis and Clark College, and said that these comments were “inappropriate,” and that Stambaugh would have to student teach elsewhere.

Yes, apparently in the Beaverton School District, just saying that you may want to marry someone of the same gender could get you removed from the classroom. Sound awful? Send a note to the Beaverton School District demanding that they explain the rationale for removing a student teacher on the basis of his sexual orientation.

What’s even more agitating in this instance is that the parent who complained about Stambaugh’s comment also complained about Stambaugh’s choice in clothing earlier in the semester. The parent called the school to file a complaint about Stambaugh’s outfit: pressed slacks, a button-up oxford shirt, and a cardigan, which happened to be a gift from Stambaugh’s grandfather. Apparently the outfit was too provocative for this parent, prompting a complaint. Lord knows what would have happened if the outfit would have included a tie.

The Beaverton School District, for their part, is sticking to their guns, telling media that these incidences occurred, and that they worked with Lewis and Clark College to get Stambaugh placed in another school district where oxford shirts aren’t so homosexual. But if you ask folks at Lewis and Clark, which is what The Portland Mercury did, they say that they were completely cut off from the decision-making process to remove Stambaugh, and had hoped to work with the school district directly to address the issue. The school district made the decision on their own, without working with Stambaugh’s professors or administrative staff at Lewis and Clark.

Which makes this case sound pretty bad. One parent complains about a student teacher acknowledging the reality that same-sex couples can’t get married in the state of Oregon, and that’s enough to get said student teacher fired? That’s troublesome, and if proven true, it’s also a pretty stark case of discriminating against someone because of their sexual orientation.

Beaverton officials continue to fall back on the mantra that Stambaugh’s conversation was not appropriate. “Our concerns were about the professional judgment and age appropriateness,” said spokeswoman Maureen Wheeler.

What is age appropriate then? Lying to the student? Forcing a student teacher like Stambaugh to pretend to be straight? Is that what Beaverton officials would have rather had seen happen? Because, by all accounts, that would be fostering a climate of lying and dishonesty. Hard to imagine those are the values that Beaverton officials would like to see instilled in its fourth graders.

It’s also worth noting that this isn’t the first time LGBT concerns have been raised regarding the Beaverton School District. Several years back, a former teacher sued the district, alleging that the school district created an openly hostile environment full of humiliation, harassment and intimidation, following the teacher’s decision to put on a production of The Laramie Project, the play that chronicles the death and immediate aftermath of Matthew Shepard.

Stambaugh now has a pro bono lawyer, Lake Perriguey, who told The Portland Mercury that Stambaugh is now looking to find an alternative placement — a true loss given that Stambaugh prepared for his Beaverton school assignment for weeks.

“He’s looking at all of his options right now. His primary concern has always been to be a good teacher,” said Perriguey.

Huh, what do you know. His primary concern was to be a good teacher. And instead, Beaverton School District gave him the boot.

Photo credit: cdsessums

Gay Student Teacher Fired for Saying He Wanted to Marry a Man?

Dear fellow taxpayers,

Please take the time to sign this online petition to stop Miami-Dade County governments from raising our taxes.

A quick look at my tax notices for Miami-Dade County shocked me to find that my property taxes were increasing 10%.

What I can see is that, at least with regard to the Miami-Dade County School Board, Metro-Dade, and the City of Miami, government entities wish to raise taxes by increasing debt or raising the taxable millage rate on that debt or our properties.? Your local government may be doing the same.

This is unacceptable because government is wasteful.? The School Board, for example, in the depth of the Great Recession, had a budget averaging $14-15,000 per student.? While I did attend public elementary at West Lab, my alma mater, the highly-regarded Belen Jesuit Prep, charged $10K per student last year, and has state-of-the-art sports and science facilities, and interactive, internet-connected Smart Boards in every classroom.? Of the $14-15,000 per student budgeted to the School Board, only $3K actually reaches schools for salaries and maintenance.? Where the rest goes is anyone%u2019s guess.

For confirmation of these numbers, please visit:

http://teachdade.wikispaces.com/Effective education spending

We don%u2019t need more taxes from government entities, which are the sort of institutions that got us into this economic mess in the first place.? We need fewer taxes so that we can have the freedom to make the right decisions and improve our lives one neighborhood, one household, and one person at a time.??

Please sign the petition.? Thank you.

No new taxes in Miami-Dade County

Well the Appalachian coal industry wants to keep it that way, as the Los Angeles Times reports. In fact, not only does the coal industry not want you to know about this particularly dark piece of its history, it wants to rub salt into the wound by blasting away the historic battlegrounds to…wait for it… mine for more coal.

And, lately, it has the help of the National Park Service in accomplishing this task.

To start at the beginning, the Battle of Blair Mountain took place in 1921 in Logan County, West Virginia. Over the course of one week, more than 10,000 coal miners confronted an industry-backed army in their struggle to unionize and demand better treatment. It was a watershed moment in the history of the labor movement. The battle ended after some 1 million rounds were fired and the U.S. Army stepped in (check out some historic photos here.)

Ever since, state authorities have resisted highlighting the battle in history books and have denied commemoration attempts. For one, the episode doesn’t exactly shine a positive light on what West Virginia last year declared to be its state rock. It’s also pretty clear, based on today’s expose from Think Progress, that the coal industry has a firm interest in indoctrinating the state’s youth through the school curriculum.

But one man is having none of that. Since 1994, 55-year-old Kenny King has fought to honor the battlefield as coal companies have tried to strip the land bare. King has lived near the mountain since 1962, and his grandfather and great uncle both fought in the battle (on opposite sides, no less.)

Without immediate help, however, King’s personal battle to preserve the battle site could be for nothing.

A recent report by the Friends of Blair Mountain documents the destruction of five locations within the battlefield by unknown parties. Even worse, Arch Coal and Massey Energy subsidiaries hold permits to eventually let the bulldozers move in and begin raping the landscape in the most destructive of all industry practices: mountaintop removal mining.

Aside from the more complicated task of a sorely-needed environmental crackdown on these kinds of mines, there’s a simple thing the federal government could do to prevent Blair Mountain’s destruction. A listing under the U.S. National Register of Historic Places would protect it under state law.

In fact, this is exactly what federal authorities had already done once. On March 30, 2009, the site was finally listed after some back-and-forth. Unfortunately, the victory was short-lived.

In bed with Big Coal’s lawyers, West Virginia’s historic preservation office appealed the designation a week after the decision based on a flawed list of 57 objecting landowners — a list that included dead people, as Jeff Biggers writes in The Huffington Post.  As a result, despite an outcry, Carol Shull, the National Park Service’s keeper of the historic registry, removed the battlefield from the list this December and just last week denied activists’ petition that she reconsider her decision, according to The Charleston Gazette.

So the Battle of Blair Mountain is, in spirit, still being fought today. In fact, it was Massey Energy’s non-union Upper Big Branch mine where the largest mine disaster in decades occurred this April. Since then, the company’s egregious safety violations have gradually come to light. The United Mine Workers union, which miners did not have in 1921, has been loudly demanding reforms in response.

Another reason to be up in arms? All over the region, mountaintop removal mining — a form of mining that wasn’t practiced back in 1921 — is polluting Appalachia’s water, decimating its landscape, and harming the health of workers and surrounding communities.

It’s true that sometimes the sheer weight of the coal industry’s influence can seem too daunting to fight. This is not one of those cases. This one small battle to preserve the Blair Mountain battle site and prevent another mountaintop mine is symbolic of the larger battle against the coal industry that community activists are fighting all over the state.

Please sign this petition to tell Carol Shull, the National Park Service’s keeper of the historic registry, and other Interior Department officials to designate the Blair Mountain battle site. The petition also includes West Virginia’s Division of Culture and History commissioner, since the ball is now in his court to reapply for a fresh listing (a move Shull has encouraged.)

It’s time to stop the destruction of West Virginia and preserve this one small example of rebellion from the grip of Big Coal.

Photo credit: Jake McClendon, Flickr User

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Big Coal Wants To Mine Away Dark History at 1920s Labor Battle Site