Always there: Two area students are among the 16 Louisiana high school graduates who had perfect attendance since they started school. Lacy R. Palmer of Doyle High and Abby Richman of Dutchtown High and their parents will be honored next month with a breakfast reception and recognition at the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education meeting. “We recognize how difficult it is to go even one year without missing a day of school due to illness, but these students have gone at least 12 years,” BESE President Keith Guice says.
We need an education: Teach for America will bring 115 new teachers to South Louisiana during the 2009-10 school year, nearly triple the size of last year’s class. This is the second-largest increase in any Teach for America region. The organization has seen a surge in volunteers, with more than 35,000 college seniors applying for the program. Increases were seen at many of the country’s top schools: 11% of all seniors at Ivy League universities applied for the program.
Getting better all the time: A survey of CEOs showed increased optimism about the U.S. economy for the first time in five quarters. Nineteen percent of the executives who participated in PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Private Company Trendsetter Barometer say they are optimistic about the economy over the next 12 months, up from the 12% who were optimistic at the end of 2008. Pessimism about the economy plunged from 54% in the fourth quarter to 41% in the first quarter.
