Early Starters in Math Reach Higher Levels
By Sean Cavanagh, Education Week (subscription required)

Students who take calculus, trigonometry, or advanced statistics late in high school are delving into the sort of mathematics that many of their teenage peers aren't likely to encounter until college, if at all. Yet the path to those and other demanding math courses begins as early as middle school, a recent federal study suggests.

Intel Competition is Where Science Rules and Research is the Key
By Joseph Berger, The New York Times

Two New York City high schools have inspired other schools around the country to teach their students how to do cutting-edge research. The schools' model pairs students with mentors at hospitals and universities and assigns teachers to act as enforcers to help students through rough patches and make sure they meet deadlines for the Intel Science Talent Search.

With 2009 Test Mandate, Push to Prepare Students
By Nelson Hernandez, The Washington Post

Beginning with the Class of 2009, high school students in Maryland will have to pass tests in algebra, biology, English and government to receive their diplomas. There are some alternative ways of passing the exams, known as the High School Assessments, but the goal is to get as many students as possible to pass the state tests, which represent an eighth- or ninth-grade level of knowledge. With that in mind, school systems are spending millions of dollars, and thousands of hours of instructional time, getting students ready for the tests.

Delays, Designs Diminish Ed-tech Research
By Corey Murray, eSchool News

Delays in the publication of federal ed-tech studies, as well as the design of certain research projects and even the circumstances under which some results are released, have fueled concerns from ed-tech advocates who question whether the Education Department is making good use of millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded research intended to explore the correlation between technology and learning.

Tilting Toward Need-Based Aid
By Elia Powers, InsideHigherEd

At a time when private colleges are often criticized for spending too much of their financial aid resources trying to attract students who can already afford to attend, George Washington University is planning to increase need-based aid and substantially decrease merit awards for next year’s incoming class.

Study: Lower Fees Not What Students Need
By Matt Krupnick, MediaNews

High living costs and financial aid shortfalls are preventing many California students from attending the state's community colleges, where student fees are the lowest in the nation, according to a study released today.

In Diversity Push, Top Universities Enroll More Black Immigrants
By Darryl Fears, The Washington Post

The nation's most elite colleges and universities are bolstering their black student populations by enrolling large numbers of immigrants from Africa, the West Indies and Latin America, according to a study published recently in the American Journal of Education.

Making Holistic Admissions Work
By Scott Jashik, InsideHigherEd

In holistic admissions, colleges evaluating applicants replace grids of grades and test scores with more individualized reviews of would-be students. The practice is most commonly associated with liberal arts colleges or with public universities at which affirmative action has been banned. Oregon State University is in neither category, but over the last six years it has moved to holistic admissions- with success that is attracting other colleges' attention.

Professors, Students Are Neighbors in Some Dorms
CNN

Educators say a growing number of faculty are moving into dorms as colleges seek to revitalize campus life and shift away from the utilitarian, high-rise halls that sprouted when enrollment soared in the 1960s. Having professors live among students is not a new idea. The tradition stretches back hundreds of years to colleges in Great Britain and was adopted in the United States in the 1930s by Harvard and Yale.

Australian State Bans YouTube in Government Schools
The AP

Victoria, Australia's second-most populous state, has banned the popular video-sharing site from its 1,600 government schools after a gang of male school students videotaped their degrading assault on a 17-year-old girl on the outskirts of the state capital of Melbourne.

Canada Named a Culprit in China's Brain Drain
By Lena Sin, CanWest

A report by the Academy of Social Sciences in Bejing says China suffers the world's most severe brain drain. Since 2002, more than 100,000 students have gone abroad to study annually, with only 20 to 30 percent returning to China.

Merger to Create New University for Scotland
By Debbie Andalo, Education Guardian

Scotland is a step nearer having a new university following ministerial approval to merge an existing higher education institution and further education college. The merger will for the first time bring a university to Lanarkshire in the west of Scotland and create the largest school of health, nursing and midwifery in Scotland.

Alternative University Offers Students Adventures in Learning
The Vancouver Sun

A new institution of higher learning, Quest University, will open its doors in Squamish in September with a promise to offer the kind of broad liberal arts education its founder believes students will need to deal with the complex challenges they face in the 21st century. Its founder, David Strangway, has spent the past decade trying to ignite a revolution in Canadian post-secondary education and modeled Quest after Williams College in Massachusetts.

Improving Access to Higher Education for Rural Students in Southern Ontario
CNW Group

The McGuinty government is creating more opportunities for students from small and rural communities to access high school, college and university courses by establishing a distance education and training network in southern Ontario. The government is investing almost $1.2 million by 2007-08 to implement the network.

State Higher Education Finance
Matt Gianneschi and Takeshi Yanagiura, State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO)

According to SHEEO's fourth annual report on higher education finance, state and local support of public higher education rose in 2006 for the first time in three years. The improved economic conditions seem also to be associated with moderating short term enrollment demand. Long term trend and federal projections indicate sustained enrollment growth for some time, however the annual rate of increase in enrollment has steadily dropped from 5 percent in FY 2003 to less than 1 percent in 2006.

Hitting Home: Quality, Cost, and Access Challenges Confronting Higher Education Today
Travis Reindl, Jobs for the Future, Making Opportunity Affordable

This report discusses the degree gap - the difference between expected US degree production and degree production needed to compete with best-performing nations - and how it threatens the nation's ability to maintain its economic competitiveness, build a labor force ready to take on high-skill jobs, and close racial and ethnic disparities in earnings and academic success.

NSF Releases Statistics on Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities
National Science Foundation

The National Science Foundation today released the latest statistics on women, minorities and persons with disabilities in science and engineering. The report focuses on education and employment statistics for these groups. The report includes figures and tables that detail degrees earned, occupations, age, country of birth and salary. The latest figures are from 2004, and were updated in December 2006.

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.