'Augmented Reality' Helps Kids Learn
By Laura Devaney, Associate Editor, eSchool News

Researchers at Harvard, MIT, and the University of Wisconsin at Madison have developed a project that uses "augmented reality" to teach students math and literacy skills. The researchers say the project holds great potential for engaging students and teaching high-level schools.

Program That Expands Teachers' Roles Linked to Higher Student Achievement
By Bess Keller, EducationWeek

Teachers in schools that participate in a program that overhauls their professional lives, in part by orienting their pay toward performance, are more likely to significantly raise student achievement than similar teachers in other public schools, the first broad evaluation of the Teacher Advancement Program has found.

Visiting Muslim Teens Shatter Stereotypes
By Deborah Horan, The Chicago Tribune

In the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, the State Department developed an exchange program called YES, or Youth Exchange and Study, which aims to give Muslim students from the Middle East, Africa and Asia a chance to absorb American culture, politics and society for an academic year. When the students return home, it is hoped that they will boost this country's image abroad by describing what they experienced.

Few California College Students Graduate or Transfer, Study Says
By Francisco Vara-Orta, The LA Times Staff Writer

Only one-fourth of California's community college students seeking a degree transferred to a university or earned an associate's degree or certificate within six years, a report released Thursday found.

College Can Be a Crash Course in Debt
By Phillip Lucas, CNN


For many college students, being short on money and being away from parents presents a dangerous temptation: credit cards. The National Foundation for Credit Counseling says parents do not introduce financial literacy to their children because they themselves do not know what it takes to remain financially stable.

The Immigrant Factor
By Scott Jashick, InsideHigherEd

A study by the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton University shows that first-generation black immigrant students are more likely than black students as a whole to attend private schools, have higher grade point averages, and score well on the SAT. Lani Guinier, a Harvard law professor, therefore questions whether black immigrants are undeserving beneficiaries of affirmative action.

College Scholarships for All No Myth in El Dorado
By Sylvia Moreno, The Washington Post

The Murphy Oil Corporation recently donated $50 million to El Dorado Promise, a program that guarantees that high school graduates from the area can afford college. The program is not need or grades based and requires only that a student enrolls in a community or 4-year college and maintain a 2.0 GPA.

Bush's 2008 Budget Calls For Boost to Pell Grant
By Amit Paley

The Bush administration yesterday proposed boosting the nation's main financial aid program for low-income college students by the largest amount in more than three decades, the latest in a flurry of measures this week by Congress and the White House to make higher education more affordable.

Shunning University 'Damages Men’s Job Prospects'
Press Association, The Guardian

British ministers are becoming increasingly concerned at the widening gender gap in higher education, after 22,500 more young women than men won university places last year.

Minister Urges Universities to Woo Part-Times Students
By James Meikle, The Guardian

The government has appealed to universities to make a culture shift and embrace more courses led and funded by employers. Universities must consider making changes to the traditional academic year, the kind of students enrolled, the curriculum and where courses are taught.

Education Obligations Ignored
By Anne Kyle, The Leader-Post

A new book written by Blair Stonechild, a professor of indigenous studies at the First Nations University of Canada, examines the history of government policy regarding aboriginal higher education and the struggle for funding and First Nations' control of post-secondary education.

Graduate Schools Brace for Bulge
By Louise Brown, The Toronto Star

Four years after the last Grade 13s and the first new four-year graduates vied for undergraduate spots at Ontario’s universities, the race is on again to accommodate those who want to continue on to grad school. Universities are working hard to find space for the extra grad students and developing support services to help students with the transition.

University of Alberta students will pay 3.3 percent more tuition next year following the approval of a funding plan by the university's board of governors. The tuition hike, which is equal to the increase in Alberta's cost of living last year, is the mot allowed under a new provincial government tuition policy announced last November.

From College Access to College Success: College Preparation and Persistence of BPS Graduates
Boston Higher Education Partnership

In 2006, the Boston Higher Education Partnership undertook a preliminary study of how high school preparation and the first-year college experience influences Boston Public School graduates' ability to persist and complete a college degree. What makes this report different from other reports of college readiness and success is the look it takes at both sides of the college transition process: K-12 preparation and postsecondary supports and students’ perceptions of both. The result is a report that calls for shared responsibility and collaboration to better prepare and support Boston students in their quest for a college degree.

State Tuition, Fees, and Financial Assistance Policies for Public Colleges and Universities, 2005-2006
By Angela Boatman and Hans L’Orange, State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO)

This report is the sixth in a series of updates by SHEEO on this topic. This latest version is a comprehensive assessment of state policies related to public college and university tuition, fees, and financial assistance policies and provides the current analysis of policies both undertaken and anticipates.

The Educational Policy Institute is an international non-profit think tank dedicated to the study of educational opportunity. The Week in Review is a weekly publication that highlights the top news stories, reports and statistics related to academic preparation and access and success in the US, Canada, and beyond. The publication also features a commentary written by either President Watson Scott Swail, EdD or Vice-President Alex Usher.

To submit comments, news releases, or submissions, please email Dr. Watson Scott Swail at wswail@educationalpolicy.org or call (757) 430-2200.