19 new public schools wanted in next 2 years
KATE N. GROSSMAN, The Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago hopes to add 19 public schools in the next two years, including a school for the arts for gifted kids and three schools linked to area universities, Chicago Schools CEO Arne Duncan announced Tuesday.

Mobility of Native American Students Can Pose Challenges to Achievement
Mary Ann Zehr, Education Week
In her eight years as North Middle School’s principal, Jeanne Burckhard has been able to point with pride to better attendance, fewer discipline problems, and a program to ensure that low-income students don’t go hungry on weekends, so they’re better able to learn on Monday mornings.
But she continues to be frustrated by an obstacle to achievement that seems particularly pronounced among the Native American students who make up 61 percent of the school’s enrollment: high mobility.

L.A. schools turn to the Internet in new effort to reduce high school dropout rate
Joel Rubin, L.A. Times
A new campaign to lower the dropout rate in Los Angeles schools will rely heavily on popular Internet websites such as YouTube and MySpace, as well as radio spots aimed at vulnerable teens, school officials announced Monday.

Provision on Tutoring Raises Renewal Issues
David J. Hoff, Education Week
With the number of students eligible for federally financed tutoring continuing to grow, school officials and tutoring providers are fighting over the scope of the program and debating how to measure its quality.

Ignorance or Bliss — or Both?
Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed
Numerous groups are working at the national level to try to get college and university faculty members more involved in overseeing their campus sports programs, given the widely accepted premise that too much compromise — academic, financial and otherwise — occurs in too many programs.

Colleges urged to rein in credit card companies' activities on campus
Kathy M. Kristof, Los Angeles Times
Colleges have turned a blind eye to aggressive and frequently deceptive credit card marketing on their campuses -- and sometimes even profit from it, a consumer group said Wednesday, calling on schools to curb the practices.

Community Service Crackdown
Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed
The U.S. Education Department is toughening its enforcement of a federal law that requires colleges to award at least 7 percent of their federal work study funds to students engaged in community service.

Call for more multi-faith schools
BBC News
A government advisor is calling for multi-faith academies to be built in the East Midlands to avoid the creation of religious and racial ghettos.

Malaysia To Raise Intake Of Foreign Students To 100,000
Asia Pulse
Malaysia aims to increase the number of foreign students studying in the country to 100,000 by 2010 from the current 50,000, said Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. To date, students from more than 150 countries are studying in Malaysia, making the country one of the most important providers of international education, together with other countries like the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

Many students in Gaza U.N.-run schools fail math, Arabic tests
AP, USA Today
Large numbers of students in U.N.-run schools in Gaza have flunked achievement tests in math and Arabic, says the agency that runs them, attributing the poor showing to violence, overcrowding and poverty. More than two-thirds of students in grades four through nine failed math, and more than one-third did poorly in Arabic, said the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which runs schools for more than half a million children of Palestinian refugees across the Arab world. Ninety percent of Gaza sixth-graders failed the math test, UNRWA said Thursday.

Review of grammar abolition polls
BBC News
Since 1998, a ballot on the future of any of England's 164 remaining academically selective state schools can be held if 20% of parents want one. It is reported the review will make it easier for a vote to be triggered, but the government has not confirmed this.

Report says Sask government should cut tuition by $1,000 to ease student debt
CAP, The West End Chronicle
REGINA - A new report says the Saskatchewan government should cut tuition fees for university students by $1,000 and extend a tuition freeze to make post-secondary education more accessible.

Future of federal bursaries and scholarships uncertain
Erin Millar, Macleans.ca
The future of federal student grants and scholarships is uncertain with the 2009 expiration of the Canadian Millennium Scholarship Foundation’s mandate, and student lobby groups weighed in on the issue this week.

Going global: Universities spread their wings
PEGGY CURRAN, The Montreal Gazette
Champlain College, a degree-granting school based in Burlington, Vt., has just introduced a new "study abroad" program - in Montreal.

Empty Nest Support?
MICHAEL KESTERTON, globeandmail.com
Sadness. Moving on isn't exactly easy when children have been the centre of your life for years, reports Barb Berggoetz in The Indianapolis Star. "It's real pain," said Natalie Caine of Los Angeles, who created support groups and a website, Emptynestsupport.com, five years ago when her daughter went to college. "I've had moms call anonymously and say, 'I missed three days of work and told them I had a sore throat. I can't get out of bed. I miss my daughter.' "

University clarifies sponsorship rules
Harriet Alexander, The Sydney Morning Herald
THE University of Sydney will introduce guidelines on how to balance ethical concerns with commercial interests in response to a series of controversies over its corporate research deals.

School for teachers to rethink English
Justine Ferrari, The Australian
ENGLISH teachers attending the federal Government's first summer school in the new year will undertake courses on the need for a wider definition of the literary canon than that traditionally taught in schools. The course, aimed at increasing teachers' skills, will address "key debates and questions concerning the place of literary and canonical texts in contemporary curriculum".

ALP to keep private schools funding
Samantha Maiden, The Australian
Abandoning plans to introduce a "needs-based" funding model that takes into account private school fees and income in his first term, the Opposition Leader will guarantee parents the existing framework will remain for five years.

Call to focus on higher maths
Justine Ferrari, The Australian
A LEADING education research group has urged governments to drop the term numeracy and focus on the quality of maths education provided in schools. In a submission to the National Numeracy Review, commissioned by the Council of Australian Governments, the peak organisation of maths educators criticises the review for becoming bogged down in the difference between numeracy and mathematics.

Minding the Gap: Why Integrating High School with College Makes Sense and How to Do It

Minding the Gap argues that in today’s highly competitive, global economy, all young people need a postsecondary education. Yet only one in ten students from the lowest economic quintile in the United States currently earns a postsecondary credential. This timely and instructive book from Jobs for the Future explores policies and practices that would quickly enable a larger number of low-income and first-generation college students to earn postsecondary degrees. In doing so, Minding the Gap calls for a system that thoroughly integrates secondary and postsecondary education—a system in which a college degree is the goal for all students.

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.