Friday, Feb. 21, 2020

Do You Play Rocket League or Call of Duty?
The spring season for eSports is around the corner, ready for rosters. Rocket League is looking for players. Email Mr. Barnabee at jbarnabee@d125.org if you are a Rocket League player and want Stevenson to pay for you to play in a Rocket League tournament! Also, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare has been added to the High School eSports League for the spring season. COD competition is based on the new “gunfight” mode. Two teams of two players face off until one wins six rounds. If you are interested in COD competition and playing in a formal eSports program, contact Mr. Barnabee.

ILLINOIS EDUCATION NEWS

Education funding is once again top of mind at the Capitol, with a key cog of Gov. JB Pritzker’s fiscal year 2021 budget proposal addressing the matter already facing pushback. At issue is the state’s three-year-old K-12 education funding system, known as the evidence-based model. For the fourth straight budget year, lawmakers are discussing how many hundreds of millions of dollars in additional funding that formula will receive as compared to a year ago.

North Chicago Community High School closed its doors Thursday and students stayed at home after a Snapchat threat of a school shooting prompted officials to take action. District 187 Superintendent John Price said in a statement late Thursday that police had followed up every lead they were provided about the threat and found “nothing of concern.”

The Chicago Public Schools has filed a lawsuit against a son-in-law of former Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios, claiming that he failed to pay “no less than” $366,000 under deals that allowed his company to park cars at 10 elementary schools, mostly for baseball fans going to Cubs games last year.

NATIONAL EDUCATION NEWS

What will the future of college education look like? A small number of institutions are testing new ideas that will have students subscribe to rather than enroll in college, learn languages in virtual reality foreign streetscapes with avatars for conversation partners, have their questions answered day or night by artificial intelligence teaching assistants, and control their own digital transcripts that record every life achievement.

Foreign gifts to U.S. universities are getting new scrutiny as the government says it’s worried about foreign meddling, with the U.S. Department of Education cracking down on universities it says have failed to report receiving money from abroad. But the U.S. also gives money to universities abroad. Federal budget documents show that 3,259 grants worth $284.4 million in taxpayer money has gone to foreign universities since the 2017 budget year.

The University of California Los Angeles has dropped plans to use facial recognition for the surveillance of the campus. UCLA’s idea was to use facial recognition as a way to gain access to buildings, to prove authenticity and to deny entry to people with restricted access to the campus, matching their faces against a database. But the administration backed down in the face of complaints from students and privacy rights groups.

A slowly emerging trend in paying for college, known as income share agreements, involves students agreeing to pay a percentage of future earnings to investors who help pay for their tuition. More than five dozen U.S. universities and coding schools, including Purdue University, use ISAs. Proponents tout the safety net they offer, while critics argue that ISAs are just a new spin on debt.

The chancellor of Syracuse University has ordered suspensions to be revoked for more than 30 students who occupied a campus building earlier this week. Kent Syverud announced the revocation of the suspensions at a monthly meeting of the University Senate, a body of faculty, administrators, staff and students.