3/31/10 National teens news

H.S. junior owns dj company, develops tv shows - 17-year-old entrepreneur Oliver Bogner balances school with promoting parties for his dj company, producing and hosting a teen dating show for television and pitching other reality shows to national tv networks.  “When he walked through the door, I was like, ‘What is this?’ He’s a kid,” said Jenny Daly, a producer with Target Entertainment Group. “He was 16. He’s doing what people in the industry coming to me have been doing for 10 years. (LA Times)

A teen jury of peers – 17 teen courts throughout the nation hear cases and decide punishments for first-time juvenile offenders, with the idea that teen jurors would better know what questions to ask and the punishment that may be most effective.  Timothy Williams, a senior who last year sat in the defendant’s chair for fighting and petty theft, said his trial before other students was intimidating and more than a little embarrassing — but effective.”They pretty much understood where I was coming from,” recalled the 17-year-old, who was back in court — this time as a juror. After he was sentenced to curfew, tutoring, community service and meeting minimum grade requirements, he has been doing better in school and hasn’t been in trouble since, he said. (LATimes)

Students still prefer school food to chef’s - After working with a West Virginia school as part of “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution,” most students still preferred the school’s nuggets and pizzas to the chef’s healthier menu.  And when denied the food they were used to, many stopped buying the school lunch. (Salon)

Why girls outperform boys in school? - NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof examines why girls are outperforming boys in almost every single academic category. Mr. Whitmire argues that the basic problem is an increased emphasis on verbal skills, often taught in sedate ways that bore boys. “The world has gotten more verbal,” he writes. “Boys haven’t.” (NYTimes)

3/11/10 National Teen News

Ludacris, Foxx join HIV campaign – The two entertainers have joined CDC’s social media campaign to use Twitter and Facebook to draw black teens into a conversation about HIV.  The AIDS virus continues to spread widely among African Americans, who represent just 14% of Americans ages 13-29 but account for half of new infections in that group, the CDC reports.Yet the number of young blacks who say they’re concerned about HIV declined from 50% to 40% from 1997 to 2009. (USA Today)

H. Barnes named Player of Year – UNC recruit Harrison Barnes honored with 2010 Morgan Wotten Award. When he’s not playing basketball, Barnes is involved in DECA (Marketing, Management, Entrepreneurship Club) and Students Helping Eliminate Poverty and Hunger (SHEPH). “I am humbled and honored to be the recipient of the prestigious Morgan Wootten Award as the 2010 McDonald’s National High School Player of the Year,” said Barnes. “I feel blessed that my name will be linked with everything this award embodies.” (Scout)

Teen cake decorator wins awards - 14-year-old Natalie New of Kansas City is a self-taught cake decorator whose designs take up to 61 hours and have won multiple contests. “I took the actual calculation of the full-sized Eiffel Tower in France and reduced them down to a size that would fit on a cake so that it would have the correct slope,” she said. “Then, to make the form that the pastillage would dry on, I had to reverse the slope.” (N&O)

Madonna, Lourdes get clothing label – 13-year-old Lourdes and her mother will be designing the teen fashion label Material Girl for Macy’s this fall.  “Joining forces with Iconix to bring my fashion ideas to consumers is very exciting for me,” the material girl said in a statement, adding that she “looks forward to working closely” with Iconix “to create and translate my vision and ideas for MG Icon.” (NY Post)

Seventeen Magazine releases prom issue - Spider tights and ugly floral prints? (Jezebel)

2/02/10 teen news – local(∆) and national

YA author LC’s reading list – For EW.com’s book blog Shelf Life, Lauren Conrad shares her favorite books: Goodnight Moon, The Great Gatsby, Bang Bang by Chelsea Handler, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Lord of the Rings, The Contortionist’s Handbook, The Notebook, and Speak. (Gawker)

(∆)Profile of teen princess Maria Cannon – Cardinal Gibbons High School senior dresses up as a princess to entertain at children’s parties and then donates all of her proceeds to the Ronald McDonald House of Durham.“It’s easy to forget about other people—and especially people who are less fortunate than you are,” she says. “This has really helped me to think of other people before me and help me grow more compassionately toward others. So it has really been a really good thing for me. And I would hope that it has helped someone else in the community.” (Carolina Parent)

W.V. lawmaker wants to ban calculators - Frustrated that young people can’t make change, Ray Canterbury, a former math major at University of Chicago, wants to ban calculators at elementary and middle schools so that students are forced to learn basic math without technical assistance.“It’s like giving them a crutch. I don’t like using that term, but that’s essentially what it is,” the delegate said. “They really don’t learn math the way they once did. A lot of things just need to be learned by practice and rote memorization.” (Charleston Daily Mail)

(∆)Half of NC high schools lack certified athletic trainers – Editorial by UNC newspaper outlines danger of 200 high schools not having certified trainers to prevent and treat injuries, especially concussions.  Schools and their communities must take it upon themselves to take care of their young, developing athletes. It is a decision that could affect the lifelong well-being of their students. (Daily Tar Heel)

2/01/10 – Teen news

Beyonce top winner at Grammy’s – But she shared the spotlight withTaylor Swift, the poised 20-year-old country-pop singer, who was crowned a new superstar with four wins, including the top prize, album of the year, for “Fearless.” Story (NY Times), Videos (People), Photos (LA Times) and Red Carpet (MSNBC).

TN teen expelled for Facebook posting - A popular basketball star at Nashville’s most prestigious high school was expelled during his senior year for posting on his Facebook his frustration about the basketball coach: “I’ma kill em all. I’ma bust this (expletive) up from the inside like nobody’s ever done before.” Taylor said he regrets the posts and has since written a letter of apology to his coach. He says the posts were taken out of context and that he never intended to hurt anyone. He has no history of school violence and has never been in a fight or suspended before this incident, documents related to his expulsion show. School officials said they can’t take any chances. (USA Today)

Teen paparazzi documentary shown at Sundance – LA based celebrity photographers like Pap earn between $800 to $3000 a week for shooting celebrities while the average salary of professional photojournalists is under $30,000 per year. This story also links to longer pieces on the typical life of a paparrazzi photographer (Gawker)

Program shows struggle of teen obesity - Long profile of a Chicago teen struggling to follow the regiment of a healthy eating and diet plan, but at least Paris Woods is trying.  One-third of American teens are considered obese.  ”The beauty of it all, that all of us learned from it, is the importance of our health, that we’re in control,” she said. (N&O)

1/22/10 Teen News – National

At-large teen bandit becomes legend - Profile 0f 18-year-old Colton Harris-Moore who has been on the run from fugitives for over 20 months after escaping from his halfway house in an airplane. Since then, the now-18-year-old fugitive has eluded police in Washington, Idaho and Canada, repeatedly vanishing into the woods. Police suspect he’s stolen at least two planes, two boats and several cars, plus broken into more than 50 homes. Yet the only thing growing faster than Harris-Moore’s alleged rap sheet is his legend. (NPR)

Review of Lady Gaga concert in NYC -And Lady Gaga was great. Even without all the bells and whistles — video screens, smoke machines, costumes and dancers — she would have captivated the crowd. Her voice was strong, even while dancing; she didn’t lip sync; and her banter between numbers was alternately funny and touching. (Jezebel)

Schools reduce languages, except Chinese – Thousands of public schools are dropping foreign language classes, except for a huge increase in the number of Chinese classes taught in some cases by teachers provided free from China.The number of students taking the Advanced Placement test in Chinese, introduced in 2007, has grown so fast that it is likely to pass German this year as the third most-tested A.P. language, after Spanish and French, said Trevor Packer, a vice president at the College Board. (NYT)

Teacher’s Bible divides Ohio town – Is an 8th grade teacher who refused to remove a Bible from his desk a hero who is being unfairly punished for Christian beliefs or a zealot who pushed his beliefs onto students? “Freshwater’s supporters want to make this into a new and reverse version of the Scopes trial,” said David Millstone, the lawyer for the Mount Vernon Board of Education, referring to the Tennessee teacher tried in 1925 for teaching evolution. “We see this as a basic issue about students having a constitutional right to be free from religious indoctrination in the public schools.”(NYT)

Accident or senior prank? – During the senior class photo, students wearing t-shirts with the C and the L left A and S and S on their own.“I heard C and L ran off. That’s not ass’s fault. That’s C and L’s fault, said senior Austin Knight. “It was funny and they shouldn’t have been punished.” (KHOU)