VOA · Education
Intermediate · B1–B2learner speed6:062024-05-31public domain
The Education beat reports on schools, universities, and learning trends worldwide. Expect academic vocabulary in a news format — a good bridge between everyday English and the lecture-style audio used in exams like IELTS Section 4.
Hit "Start dictation practice" — all 6 minutes are already sliced into sentences, so practice starts immediately. No wait.
Learner-speed news English: clear delivery, everyday vocabulary, natural sentence rhythm.
Switch to Dictation mode, type each sentence, and get a word-by-word diff with your accuracy score.
01The National Collegiate Athletic Association, NCAA, and the five biggest college sports conferences recently agreed to pay almost $2.8 billion to settle claims from college athletes.
02The NCAA is the organization that runs college sports in the United States.
03It oversees about 500,000 college athletes from some 1,100 schools.
04The claims came up over the past 10 years.
05The legal files argued that the NCAA and the conferences prevented college athletes from making money while playing sports for the schools.
06The agreement calls for the NCAA and the conferences to pay $2.77 billion over 10 years to more than 14,000 former and current college athletes.
07The settlement still needs approval from a U.S.
08federal judge and different parties to the legal case.
09If it is approved, students who play sports for their colleges will be permitted to be paid, like professional athletes, directly by the schools.
10Under current NCAA rules, college athletes, also known as student-athletes, can only receive payments from outside groups that use their names, images, and likenesses in commercial efforts, such as advertisements.
11In a statement, NCAA president, Charlie Baker and the school representatives said the agreement was an important step in the continuing reform of college sports.
12Steve Berman, a leading lawyer in the cases, said with the settlement, college athletes are finally able to receive a fair share of the billions of dollars of revenue that they generate for their schools.
13Although the decision provides a reason for celebration for some current and former students, it leaves more questions for others.
14Earlier in 2024, members of Dartmouth College's basketball team voted to join a labor organization called a union.
15The move means that the student-athletes on the team could have the right to negotiate a working contract like other university employees.
16Chris Peck is the leader of the union that represents the Dartmouth basketball players.
17He criticized the decision to settle by calling it a workaround.
18Peck noted that the agreement calling for universities to share money from television deals and ticket sales with athletes does not answer whether students who play sports are school employees.
19The union wants a clear answer.
20Are students who play sports employees?
21Or are they more like those who participate in non-study activities like singing in a group?
22Dartmouth has yet to accept the students' union vote, and the NCAA is asking the U.S.
23Congress to step in and say student-athletes are not employees.
24Tim Walton coaches the women's softball team at the University of Florida.
25The school belongs to one of the large conferences that will have to pay millions of dollars into the settlement.
26Walton wants to know what will happen to sports like women's softball that do not bring in money like men's football or basketball.
27He asked, Are they dropping programs?
28Are they dropping sports?
29In addition, there is a law in the U.S.
30known as Title IX that requires women and men to have equal rights in education.
31Does the law require female student-athletes to get paid like men?
32Michael Leroy is a sports law professor at the University of Illinois.
33He said there will be a concern if women get shortchanged.
34Christina Stiglianu is a sports lawyer in New York.
35She and Leroy both said regular payments from universities to students will make it easier for the students to argue that they are indeed employees.
36Leroy said the NCAA would like to be able to pay student-athletes but not consider them employees.
37That, he noted, would mean the NCAA is going to be treated differently than any other business in America.
38You cannot have separate pay.
39But one college softball player, T.R.A.
40Jennings of the University of Oklahoma, did not seem too concerned about the legal questions.
41She was celebrating the fact that she might have some money saved after college.
42She said it will be nice for players to know they have money to, in her words, kickstart your life.
43I'm Dan Friedel.
44And I'm Jill Robbins.
// transcribed with Whisper AI — reading it is easy; catching it by ear is the skill
Practice it by ear
