The following eclips contain news about the controversial study on teacher ed programs in the U.S. Out of all USG institutions with baccalaureate or master’s programs, only UGA got three stars out of four for its secondary education program. No other institution in the USG got above 2 1/2 stars.

UNIVERSITY SYSTEM — GOOD NEWS

Atlanta set to land sough-after AT&T startup hub
http://www.ajc.com/news/business/atlanta-set-to-land-sought-after-att-startup-hub/nYNQK/
Atlanta Journal Constitution
June 17, 2013
The Georgia Tech area will soon be the new home of an AT&T innovation center that would add dozens of new research jobs and power a high-tech incubator designed to generate more startups across metro Atlanta, according to two people with direct knowledge of the deal. The company has selected Atlanta as one of four international locations for the Foundry, a hub where engineers and executives dream up new technologies and then quickly bring them to market. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution first reported the deal was in the works in November. Staffers at the centers work with software developers and engineers from outside firms on new programs, apps and devices. Teams work on new ways to store messages, new programs for smartphones and tablets and even new methods to control games.

AT&T to put innovation center at Georgia Tech
tp://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/blog/atlantech/2013/06/att-to-put-innovation-center-at.html
Atlanta Business Chronicle
June 17, 2013
AT&T has picked Atlanta as the site for its fourth Foundry innovation center — a development that could seed dozens of technology startups in the area. The Foundry program helps AT&T tap independent developers, venture capital firms and startups to develop new applications and services for its network. The Atlanta Foundry, which will focus on mobile technologies, will be located on the ground floor of the Centergy building on the Georgia Tech campus, according to a source. AT&T, which declined comment, is expected to announce the Atlanta innovation center later this month

Georgia Tech Architecture Graduate Student Awarded Portman Prize for Innovative Midtown Charter School Design
http://midtown.patch.com/groups/announcements/p/an–georgia-tech-architecture-graduate-student-awarde45404f63cc
Midtown Patch
June 17, 2013
Georgia Institute of Technology’s (Georgia Tech) School of Architecture and John Portman & Associates (PORTMAN) recently announced that Miguel Otero Fuentes has been awarded the prestigious Portman Prize – an architectural design challenge that provides students the opportunity and platform to showcase their design talents. Otero Fuentes, completing his first year in the Masters of Architecture program at Georgia Tech, came to the school from Puerto Rico when he received the T. Gordon Little Fellowship, a full scholarship for his study. He won the top honor for his design “Midtown Gardens School for the Arts.” This year’s charge was to design a charter high school for the arts located at the southern end of Midtown Atlanta. Otero Fuentes’ winning design marries the unique cultural offerings and personalities of two iconic streets in Atlanta: Peachtree Street and Juniper Street.

UNIVERSITY SYSTEM — NEWS

Online Overdrive
http://harvardmagazine.com/2013/07/online-overdrive
Harvard Magazine
June 17, 2013
The frantic pace of expansion and experimentation in online education—spurring HarvardX and its edX partnership with MIT, and its principal for-profit competitors Coursera and Udacity—has if anything sped up in recent weeks. Herewith a snapshot of new alliances; intriguing new applications for massive open online courses (MOOCs); some emerging criticisms and counterreactions; and future course offerings… Then, in mid May, Udacity and Georgia Institute of Technology announced an online master’s degree in computer science, aiming to serve 10,000 students during the next three years (300 are enrolled on campus). The degree would cost $7,000—a fraction of the annual tuition for residential students—in part reflecting a $2-million sponsorship from AT&T, and Georgia Tech’s need to hire only a handful of instructors to support the new online learners; Udacity will provide staff “mentors” to handle student questions.

GGC Bids Farewell to President Kaufman with Touching Celebration
http://lawrenceville-ga.patch.com/groups/announcements/p/an–ggc-bids-farewell-to-president-kaufman-with-touch9921aa9daa
Lawrenceville Patch.com
June 18, 2013
Members of the extended Georgia Gwinnett College community gathered today during the quiet of a pre-exam study day to honor its founding and charter president, Dr. Daniel J. Kaufman. Students, faculty and staff were joined by Gwinnett business and civic leaders for an outdoor ceremony celebrating Kaufman’s seven years with the college with memories, laughter and some tears.

ATDC has new leader
http://www.gpb.org/blogs/georgia-works/2013/06/17/atdc-has-new-leader
Georgia Public Broadcasting
June 17, 2013
The start-up/job growth engine at Georgia Tech, the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), has named Michael Hersh Chief Executive Officer. ATDC was founded in 1980 for the purpose of helping Georgia entrepreneurs create technology start-ups. The program has been a considerable success, helping launch or assist over 130 companies. These companies have hired thousands of people across Georgia. ATDC is headquartered at Technology Square in Atlanta with two offices on the campus of Georgia Tech and one in Savannah. The organization is also part of startup services at Georgia Tech’s Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI2) and partners with VentureLab, Georgia Tech’s center for technology commercialization. Recently Forbes.com named ATDC one of the “12 Business Incubators Changing the World”.

Michael Hersh is ATDC’s new chief
http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/blog/atlantech/2013/06/michael-hersh-is-atdcs-new-chief.html
Atlanta Business Chronicle
June 17, 2013
The Advanced Technology Development Center has a new chief. Michael Hersh wil take over as general manager of the 30 year old business incubator in early August. Hersh helped launch ZC Sterling, a financial services company, where he built one of its business units into a $200 million entity with 350 employees. ZC Sterling was subsequently purchased by QBE, an Australian insurance company. Earlier in his career, Hersh worked with GE Capital and Accenture, developing several sales-force automation and system software applications. Most recently, Hersh has focused on helping startups as an angel investor and mentor. Founded in 1980, the ATDC helps Georgia entrepreneurs launch and build technology companies by providing coaching, connection and community-building services. The program has helped create thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in tax revenues by graduating more than 140 companies, including Suniva Inc. and SoloHealth Inc., the ATDC noted.

UNIVERSITY SYSTEM — RESEARCH

Iron Fertilization Develops a New Wrinkle
http://news.discovery.com/earth/oceans/iron-fertilization-develops-a-new-wrinkle-130617.htm
Discovery News
June 17, 2013
Last year, American entrepreneur Russ George dumped a hundred tons of iron sulfate into the Pacific Ocean off Canada. A 3,861 square mile algal bloom formed. That’s geo-engineering. An iron-rich ocean is fertile, and allows colonies of photosynthetic plankton to thrive. George was hoping that the plankton would draw carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and lock it into the ocean as a way to address climate change… The implication of this study for iron fertilization experiments is this: the iron we add into the oceans will probably be removed quickly by the diatoms, said Ellery Ingall, the author of the study and a professor in Georgia Tech’s College of Sciences, speaking to DNews while vacationing in France. How quickly the the diatoms remove the iron is unknown, but this could well be a new wrinkle in geo-engineering.
Wearable Combined Power Generation and Storage
http://ecogeek.org/component/content/article/3867
EcoGeek
June 17, 2013
Most of the new power technology we learn about these days falls on one side or the other of the power-generation/power-storage divide. But a power cell developed by researcher Zhong Lin Wang at Georgia Tech both produces and stores power in the same tiny unit. The self-charging cell uses a “piezoelectric membrane that drives lithium ions from one side of the cell to the other when the membrane is deformed by mechanical stress. The lithium ions driven through the polarized membrane by the piezoelectric potential are directly stored as chemical energy using an electrochemical process.”
EDUCATION NEWS

Faculty Culture is Fractured
http://chronicle.com/article/Faculty-Culture-Is-Fractured/139829/
Chronicle of Higher Education
June 17, 2013
Juan Uriagereka spent most of spring break hunched over a table in his living room here, working with one of his closest collaborators, a linguist from Japan’s Yokohama National University. The two scholars have been publishing together for a decade but hadn’t met in person in a year. Their weeklong meeting at the University of Maryland here, where Mr. Uriagereka is a linguistics professor and an associate provost, was a rare occasion to work face to face on their forthcoming book about using probability models to analyze sentence structure. (subscription required)

The University Should Be Seen as a Public Good
http://diverseeducation.com/article/53962/
Diverse Issues in Higher Education
June 17, 2013
The concept of higher education as the “great equalizer” may be the best outcome of the evolution of American colleges and universities in the 20th century. As education advanced and the needs of the workforce changed, Americans recognized with clearheaded pragmatism that education offered the most certain avenue “out and up.” They took advantage of the G.I. Bill to retrain to meet the demands of the mature industrial economy. For middle-class America, the expectation became even stronger as parents prepared their children for a college degree and sacrificed what was necessary to achieve it.

Donations Barely Rose Last Year as Individuals Held Back, Report Says
http://chronicle.com/article/Donations-Rose-Only-Slightly/139879/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Chronicle of Higher Education
June 18, 2013
Donations to nonprofit colleges and other charities are inching up so slowly that it will take at least six more years for most organizations to raise as much as they did in 2007, before the recession hit, predict researchers behind the “Giving USA” report, who are releasing figures on Tuesday that show donations rose just 1.5 percent last year after inflation. Donations from foundations, corporations, and individuals totaled slightly more than $316-billion, according to “Giving USA.”… Donors have made nine donations of $100-million or more in the first five months of this year, including a $350-million gift to the Johns Hopkins University from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York; a $133-million gift to the New York campus of Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology from Irwin Mark and Joan Klein Jacobs; a $125-million gift to Harvard University from Hansjörf Wyss; and a $110-million gift to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor from Charles T. Munger.

Undue Influence?
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/06/18/does-china-have-too-much-influence-over-academe-west
Inside Higher Education
June 18, 2013
By Elizabeth Redden
Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng’s assertion that New York University has been pressured by Chinese officials to force him out of the institution has raised broader questions about whether American academe is being unduly influenced by China’s government. Even as NYU denies the specific charges raised by Chen, others say that the general problem of pressure on American universities is real and troublesome.

Study: Teacher Prep Programs Get Failing Marks
http://www.npr.org/2013/06/18/192765776/study-teacher-prep-programs-get-failing-marks
National Public Radio
June 18, 2013
By Claudio Sanchez
The U.S. spends more than $7 billion a year preparing classroom teachers, but teachers are not coming out of the nation’s colleges of education ready, according to a study released Tuesday by U.S.News & World Reportand the National Council on Teacher Quality.

Rookie Teachers Woefully Unprepared Report Says
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/18/us-usa-education-teachers-idUSBRE95H02S20130618?utm_source=eNews&utm_campaign=90f1c07747-June_186_17_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5fb1de72ab-90f1c07747-74370477
Reuters News Services
June 18, 2013
By Stephanie Simon
(Reuters) – The U.S. teacher training system is badly broken, turning out rookie educators who have little hands-on experience running classrooms and are quickly overwhelmed by the job, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Council on Teacher Quality.

Teacher Ed Takedown
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/06/18/nctq-study-gives-teacher-prep-programs-failing-grades
Inside Higher EducationI
By Lauren Ingeno
The vast majority of teacher education programs — housed in universities and colleges across the United States — are not sufficiently preparing future teachers to run their own classrooms, says a highly critical new report from the National Council on Teacher Quality. Like much of the group’s previous work, the new study’s methodology generated complaints from many education school leaders, even as they acknowledge that programs need to improve.

Report: U.S. Drops in High School, College Grad Rates
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/06/17/report-us-drops-in-high-school-college-grad-rates?s_cid=rss:report-us-drops-in-high-school-college-grad-rates
U.S. News & World Report
June 18, 2013
While the United States ranks among those spending the most on public school students, country has slipped among other developed nations in student achievement, according to a new study from the Council on Foreign Relations.

A Deficit of Trust
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/06/18/justice-department-launches-investigation-merit-aid-talks
Inside Higher Education
June 18, 2013
By Kevin Kiley
The U.S. Department of Justice sent a letter last month to several private colleges saying the department opened an investigation into a “possible agreement among colleges to restrict tuition discounting and prevent colleges from changing or improving financial aid awards to individual students,” a move that the letter said would be in violation of federal antitrust regulations.

The Lights are On…
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/06/18/education-department-still-has-vacancies-many-key-positions
Inside Higher Education
June 18, 2013
By Libby A. Nelson
WASHINGTON — The next few months should be a busy time for the U.S. Education Department. The administration is gearing up for several rounds of negotiations over possible new rules, including rewriting controversial regulations governing for-profit colleges. Congress is beginning the process of renewing the Higher Education Act. And in the days after President Obama won re-election, Education Secretary Arne Duncan promised an increased focus on higher education issues in the administration’s second term. Six months after inauguration, though, one of the biggest questions facing the Education Department is whether it has the personpower to carry out its ambitious, if still hazy, agenda.
Community College Counseling Gains
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/06/18/survey-shows-growth-counseling-services-2-year-colleges
Inside Higher Education
June 18, 2013
By Doug Lederman
A new study provides evidence of slow and steady recognition that mental health services matter at two-year colleges. Data from the American College Counseling Association show that even as their enrollments have swelled, community college counseling centers continue to have proportionally fewer resources than do their counterparts at four-year institutions.

Groups Ask for More Oversight on Private College Loans
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2013/06/18/groups-ask-more-college-oversight-private-loans
Inside Higher Education
June 18, 2013
In a letter to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Monday, consumer advocacy groups, higher education associations and others asked the bureau to require that colleges give prior approval before students borrow private loans, saying that the bureau has the power to require full certification by institutions.

OTHER NEWS

Labor commissioner says Ga. economy rebounding
http://www.northfulton.com/Articles-BUSINESS-c-2013-06-17-199276.114126-sub24320.114126-Labor-commissioner-says-Ga-economy-rebounding.html
Alpharetta Revue and News
June 18, 2013
ROSWELL, Ga. – Georgia is in a good position to rebound from the recession and is ready to add jobs. That’s what Ga. Department of Labor Commissioner Mark Butler told the room full of job seekers June 10 at the Roswell United Methodist Church (RUMC) Job Fair. “Georgia businesses are creating jobs,” he said. The state, which was once one of the fastest growing in the nation, was hurt by the hous…

Georgia Supreme Court hears ‘open records’ case against state, KIA
http://onlineathens.com/local-news/2013-06-17/georgia-supreme-court-hears-open-records-case-against-state-kia
Athens Banner Herald
June 18, 2013
Lawyers used grammar rules as much as Georgia laws in their arguments Monday before the Supreme Court over whether the state is required to turn over Kia Motors’ hiring records…
Unsuccessful Kia job applicants seek hiring records
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2013/06/17/2548513/unsuccessful-kia-job-applicants.html
Columbus Ledger Enquirer
June 18, 2013
ATLANTA — Documents having to do with a state agency’s involvement in recruiting and hiring workers for a private company should be available to the public, a lawyer for four unsuccessful applicants for jobs at a Georgia auto plant argued Monday. Gerry Weber made the argument before the Supreme Court of Georgia. The state and Kia Motors Manufacturing are appealing a lower court’s ruling that app…

Employers: Entry-level applicants are just about useless
http://www.thestreet.com/story/11951272/1/employers-entry-level-applicants-are-just-about-useless.html?cm_ven=RSSFeed
The Street
June 18, 2013
Analysis by Bryant & Stratton College with help from Wakefield Research from a survey among U.S. adults age 18 to 34 found that 80% of workers believe they are “job ready and possess all the skills, experience and education needed to advance in their desired career path or obtain their next job.” Yet 40% of U.S. employers say most entry-level job candidates lack even the basic skills needed to…

Widening Achievement Gap Hurts U.S. Competitiveness, Report Says
http://chronicle.com/article/Widening-Achievement-Gap-Hurts/139883/
Chronicle of Higher Education
June 18, 2013
The United States’ global competitiveness is suffering in part because recent policies at all levels of education have widened the achievement gap between rich and poor, according to a report released on Monday by the Council on Foreign Relations. The report, part of the council’s “Renewing America” series, says that stalled expansion of access to community colleges and student-loan repayment plans that favor wealthy borrowers have perpetuated a class divide, increased dropout rates, and curbed college attainment. (subscription required)