Printing Errors Invalidate U.S. Reading Scores on International Test
Sean Cavanaugh, Education Week
Reading scores for the United States on an international assessment of student skills have been invalidated because of major errors in the printing of the test, in what a top federal education official called an “embarrassment” for government officials and the private contractor responsible for administering the exam.

Ex-Principal of New York Arabic School Sues City
AP, Education Week
An educator who helped create New York City's first Arabic-themed public school sued the city, saying officials forced her to resign following a furor over her public comments.

Daley urges preschool for kids
Fran Speilman, The Chicago Sun-Times
Calling early childhood education the key to "closing the achievement gap" between rich and poor students, Mayor Daley on Friday urged parents to enroll young children in a pre-kindergarten program with 1,500 vacancies.

State summit targets ethnic gap in student achievement
Howard Blume, The Los Angeles Times
Institutional racism and a lack of resources are among the possible causes cited in frank discussions at a Sacramento gathering.

Audit Finds Misuse of $34 Million Student Loan Subsidy
Jonathan D. Glater, The New York Times
The student loan corporation in Pennsylvania improperly exploited a subsidy program to collect $34 million from the government, said a report released yesterday by the inspector general of the federal Education Department.

Countdown for Colleges to Report Dangerous Chemicals
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Department of Homeland Security published in today’s Federal Register its final list of chemicals with potential terrorist uses. Colleges now have 60 days to inventory the chemicals in their laboratories and submit the results to an online federal database called Top Screen.

Financial Aid for the Rich: A boon for business owners
Kim Clark, US News and World Report
A little-noticed loophole written into federal college financial aid rules allows the children of wealthy entrepreneurs to collect aid intended for the needy.

House Committee Advances Higher Education Act Reauthorization Bill
Cody Brumfield, AACRAO
The U.S. House of Representatives Education and Labor Committee voted unanimously this week to advance a bill reauthorizing the Higher Education Act. The measure, which has already passed the Senate, is expected to be considered by the full House in December or January.

Swedish model of 'free schools'
James Westhead, BBCNews
When Daniel Lundquist and his wife Ulrika moved to Ingaro, 30 minutes' drive east of Sweden's capital Stockholm, they immediately started looking for schools for their three young children. Like many British parents they worried that the local state schools were either too far away or not quite what they wanted. However, rather than complaining or simply going private, the Lundquists decided on a route currently not available to most British parents - they actually set up a brand new state school themselves with other local parents and helped run it just how they liked.

Packed classes hint at peace in battered Iraq
David Smith, The Observer
The pupils who had been too scared to attend class are now returning. It's one small sign that Iraqis are eager for a return to normality - and that the 'tipping point' might not be far away.

Czechs found guilty of bias in Roma schooling
Ian Traynor, The Guardian
Roma activists across Europe were celebrating a landmark victory last night as Europe's leading human rights authority ruled that the Czech Republic had practiced racial discrimination by wrongly channeling Roma children into remedial education schools.

English and maths class size fall
BBC News
The average size of English and maths classes in the first two years of secondary school fell over the term of the last Scottish administration.

Valuable lessons for Iraq from Canada
Katherine O’Neill, The Globe and Mail
In an attempt to help rebuild her  Iraq's devastated educational system, UNESCO, the United Nations' culture agency, has sent Prof. Al-Salihi and 13 other Iraqi professors to the University of Alberta this month to learn from the school's education experts.

CMD expands partnership with York University
Memorial University Press Release
The Centre for Management Development (CMD) has extended its program offerings as a result of an expanded partnership with York University’s Schulich Executive Education Centre (SEEC). The new contract, signed Thursday, Nov.15, announces more professional development opportunities and greater collaboration between the two centres.

Professors declaring classrooms laptop-free zones
Janice Tibbetts, CanWest News Service
Professor Jean Boivin recalls how he was stunned to read in a newspaper that one of his students had lost thousands of dollars day-trading on his laptop during class. The public exposure of the stock-distracted student was among many irritants that prompted Boivin to declare his classroom a laptop-free zone, where students wouldn't be tempted to surf the web, check their e-mails, shop online, or network on Facebook.

Ship for students who want to cruise through university
Harriet Alexander, The Sydney Morning Herald
The country's most improbable university campus put ashore at Darling Harbour yesterday. The Scholar Ship - get it? - a floating campus managed by seven universities from around the world, docked in Sydney for the first time since it retired from the Caribbean cruiser circuit to pursue loftier educational ideals. Macquarie University is one of the venture partners.

Student medicos ask: is there an actor in the house?
Guy Healy, The Australian
STUDENT doctors are diagnosing actors playing sick patients at the University of Sydney, while their counterpart nurses at Charles Darwin University are using a virtual hospital to learn to treat patients, all in the name of making the experience more real.

Rudd's $5m mentor plan
The Sydney Morning Herald
HIGH SCHOOL students would be mentored by retired professionals and tradespeople as part of Labor's education plans.

Gender differences in career choices: Why girls don’t like science
A new report by the Canadian Council on Learning (CCL) finds that growing numbers of Canadian women are successfully pursuing post-secondary studies, but there still exists a large gender gap in science-related occupations and a gender-based wage gap. A number of factors, including parental attitudes, social pressures, and girls’ perceptions of and experiences with science turn girls and women away from science and engineering.

Youth Allowance and Regional Young People: Access to Tertiary Education
This study by a consortium led by Monash University and the Charles Sturt University (Australia) looks at barriers to postsecondary access for rural youths in Australia. The study investigates the "impact of eligibility criteria for youth Allowance on regional young people who must leave home for tertiary education."

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.