Education

In a pilot program launching next spring, Uber is offering 100 Pittsburgh-area drivers a $500 incentive to go toward classes, fees and textbooks for the Community College of Allegheny County.

The initiative will take place in next year's spring and summer semesters.

In a press release, CCAC said the greatest barrier for many potential students is the price of textbooks and required fees, and the new program would address those needs.

The Community College of Allegheny County is one local organization that plans to apply for a new state grant to fund apprenticeship programs.

In the 1970s, Pennsylvania had 300,000 volunteer firefighters, according to the State Fire Commissioner. That number has dropped to about 50,000, leaving some volunteer stations stretched thin and communities underserved.

About two dozen graduate students chanted "kill the bill" outside the Cathedral of Learning on Wednesday. Many teach undergraduate classes or assist with research in exchange for waived tuition or a stipend. 

Ann Kozak, 15, peered at a three-dimensional printed model of the female reproductive system. Learning about career options in women's health was a great experience, she said.

Pennsylvania has some of the most expensive public universities in the country, and an annual report from the College Board showing the cost of higher education is rising.

A dozen captivated kids surrounded Akasha Lestat Van-Cartier, whose blue ball gown sparkled as she read: “I am thankful for my hair, because it makes me unique. I am thankful for my ears, because they let me hear words like, ‘I love you.’”

This is the fourth month Van-Cartier has spent time at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh’s North Side branch reading kids books about respect, self-confidence and being the person you want to be.

Teachers in Pennsylvania's capital city are asking for support after a series of violent altercations with students has led to multiple resignations.

The Harrisburg Education Association says at least 45 teachers have resigned since July and October. Association President Jody Barksdale says more have resigned since then.

Speaking at a school board meeting Monday evening, first-grade teacher Amanda Sheaffer says she has been hit and kicked by her students.

The nation's oldest historically black college will remain accredited after a state commission decided to work with the school, citing "significant progress" after a two-year probationary period.

In its latest annual report sent to 30,000 homes in the city, A+ Schools is drawing attention to persistent disparities within Pittsburgh Public Schools.

In 2014, a state task force was assembled to find out how many Pennsylvania schools teach its students about the Holocaust, genocide and human rights violations. Act 70 encouraged schools to teach about these subjects by providing free resources and training for teachers.

Three years later, the Pennsylvania Board of Education has found that 93 percent of public, charter and technical schools in the commonwealth reported some level of instruction on the topics. 

Hundreds of Carnegie Mellon University graduate students spent hours this week calling their elected representatives asking them to oppose a provision of the Congressional House Republican’s proposed tax reform bill. 

A committee tasked with finding alternatives to suspending Pittsburgh students below third grade for non-violent offenses says the district needs more counselors, social workers and de-escalation training.

A western Pennsylvania school board has a new, openly transgender member.

The Erie Times-News reports Tyler Titus won one of four open seats on the Erie School Board on Tuesday.

The Victory Fund, a political action committee dedicated to electing openly LGBT people, says 33-year-old Titus is the first openly transgender person ever elected in the state of Pennsylvania.

Titus is a clinical therapist and Democrat who won a write-in Democratic nomination in May.

More than 600 educators from Pennsylvania, Ohio and New York gathered in McKees Rocks at Montour Elementary School on Tuesday for a conference on technology education.

A sweeping school code bill will become a state law without Gov. Tom Wolf's signature. 

In addition to providing funding for public schools, the GOP-penned legislation suspends the traditional seniority rules that dictate furloughing teachers, opting instead to eliminate teachers based on who scores the worst on the state's teacher effectiveness rating.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf will allow a bill to become law that weakens teacher seniority protections and gives school districts more flexibility in their rationale for making layoffs.

School districts now will be able to cite “economic reasons” as a rationale for furloughing teachers.

Previously, districts could only slash staff by closing schools, cutting whole academic programs, or pointing to enrollment declines.

State Rep. Steven Bloom, R- Cumberland, said that’s bad public policy.

A Pennsylvania school district is investigating complaints that students on a class trip to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum posted pictures making light of some exhibits.

Superintendent Ed Bowser of the Forest Hills School District said Friday officials are looking into social media posts from the senior class trip Wednesday to the Washington, D.C., museum.

The mayor of Philadelphia on Thursday took steps to take control of the city's struggling public school system after 16 years of state oversight.

Mayor Jim Kenney said that it is time for the city to be accountable for the education of its 200,000 schoolchildren.

"If we don't take responsibility for the fate of our schools, then we will continue to relegate generations of Philadelphia's families to poverty," he said.

Pittsburgh Public Schools and the union representing its teachers and paraprofessionals are continuing negotiations as employees begin their fifth month working under a contract that expired at the end of June.

State funding for Penn State, Pitt and three other Pennsylvania universities is on its way after being held up for months by the Legislature's dispute over fully funding the state budget.

The Pennsylvania Senate passed a bill Wednesday that would alter a wide range of state policies related to public education — including the weakening of seniority protections for teachers.

The chamber agreed to the omnibus school code bill, as passed last week by the House of Representatives, by a vote of 35 to 15.  Now it will go before Gov. Tom Wolf, who says he has “serious concerns” about some of its provisions.

Toyosi Egbebi says she spends a lot of her free time taking things apart and trying to figure out how they work.

The boyfriend of a woman charged with attacking a Pittsburgh teacher with a brick has also been charged.

Twenty-six-year-old Vincent Beasley is charged with aggravated assault, conspiracy and other crimes in the Oct 18 attack on 46-year-old Janice Watkins.

Police say Daishonta Williams and Beasley followed Watkins' vehicle as she left Pittsburgh Martin Luther King PreK-8 that afternoon.

A woman who claims a public school teacher choked her daughter while disciplining her has been charged with following the teacher after school, hitting her with a brick and then pulling her from her car and beating her.

Police say an elementary school teacher was hit in the face with a brick and dragged from her car in Pittsburgh after a dispute with the parents of one of her students.

They say the attack happened around 3:15 p.m. Wednesday as 46-year-old Janice Watkins was leaving Pittsburgh King PreK-8 on the North Side.

Authorities say she was being followed by a couple in a SUV, and when she stopped at an intersection near the West End Bridge, the woman threw a brick at her.

More than 200 teachers and staff at a Washington County school district plan to go on strike Wednesday saying proposed salary changes are unreasonable.

Ringgold School District, 20 miles south of Pittsburgh, serves about 3,000 students from Monongahela and six other Mon Valley towns.