Idaho Eliminates More Student Achievement Tests
AP
Ninth graders will no longer take the Idaho Standard Achievement Tests because the state Board of Education can't cover the costs, the board announced Tuesday.

Report Finds Better Scores in New Crop of Teachers
Sam Dillon, The New York Times
Teaching is attracting better-qualified people than it did just a few years ago, according to a report released Tuesday by the Educational Testing Service. Prospective teachers who took state teacher licensing exams from 2002 to 2005 scored higher on SATs in high school and earned higher grades in college than their counterparts who took the exams in the mid-1990s, the report said.

Poverty’s Effect on U.S. Scores Greater Than for Other Nations
Sean Cavanaugh, Education Week
Not only did many industrialized countries outperform the United States in science on a recent international exam, but American students’ academic achievement was also more likely to be affected by their wealth or poverty and family background than was their peers’ in higher-scoring nations.

Public and Private High Schools Do About the Same According to Review of Two New Reports
The Center on Education Policy and The Milton & Rose D. Friedman Foundation
Two new reports appear to come to different conclusions about whether private schools are better than public ones at educating students. But a new review of both reports finds little actual difference between their findings—and little difference between public and private schools.

N.Va. Schools Top Challenge Index Survey
Jay Matthews, The Washington Post
All of Northern Virginia's major school systems now pay for college-level tests for all high school students and require those in Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate classes to take the programs' difficult exams, according to The Washington Post's annual Challenge Index survey. The region is unique in having such a large cluster of school districts with those policies.

A Reminder From New York
Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed
After months of silence on student loans, Cuomo announces another settlement, unveils new code of conduct, and warns Congress not to dally on Higher Education Act reforms.

Other Colleges Eye Harvard's Plan to Increase Affordability
Susan Kinzie, The Washington Post
The day after Harvard University announced changes to make the school more affordable for middle-class and upper-middle-class families, some higher education officials said yesterday that they would begin discussions within their schools about how to compete with that program.

In Seattle, a Firsthand Lesson in College Access
Anna Weggel, The Chronicle of Higher Education
A program dreamed up by a U. of Washington freshman puts students in the role of admissions counselors at local high schools.

Mass Firings at a University in Mexico Could Disrupt Its U.S. Ties
Monica Campbell, The Chronicle of Higher Education
University of the Americas-Puebla campus security guards and administrators stood ready to shutter La Catarina, the school’s newspaper. They were under order of the university's administration to block publication of La Catarina, which had gained a reputation as an independent voice during its six-year tenure at this elite, private liberal-arts university. For La Catarina's many supporters, the answer was obvious: The newspaper had taken on the university's increasingly unpopular administration and its rector, Pedro Angel Palou García. Now, nearly a year later, the university is finding that its list of enemies has grown, and that many people on the campus and off are raising uncomfortable questions about its leadership and financial management.

Call for major education shake-up
Seonag MacKinnon
Ministers are being urged to undertake a radical shake-up of Scottish education, BBC Scotland has learned.

"Price war" erupting at Atlantic universities
Pauline Tam, The Ottawa Citizen
 The Ottawa Citizen reports that many of Canada's Atlantic universities are "slashing prices" to attract students from Ontario. Newfoundland has cut tuition 23% since 2001, to an average of $2,633 -- second only to Quebec's $2,025 as the lowest in Canada. PEI cut tuition 9.8% this year, to $4,440. Nova Scotia, at $5,878, still has the country's highest tuition rates, but cut tuition 8.5% this year. Only New Brunswick, with Canada's second-highest tuition, has resisted the price war, instead increasing tuition by 4.8%, the steepest jump in the country. 

CASA releases recommendations and review of financial aid in Canada
CASA News Release
 The Canadian Alliance of Student Associations has released a new report, "Modernizing Canada's System of Student Financial Assistance."  The 73-page report considers programs available to students before, during and after PSE.  The paper also includes recommendations on how current programs should be revised, and which new programs are needed.  The recommendations include "increased emphasis on up-front targeted grants, rather than tax credits or savings programs used predominantly by higher-income families."  The paper also calls for a renewal of the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation, which faces expiry in 2009

Canada's financial aid system can make PSE a risky bet
Rosanna Tamburri, University Affairs
Despite $6 billion a year in provincial and federal student financial assistance programs, the average debt per borrowing student is $24,000, and there has been no substantial improvement in participation rates among low-income, Aboriginal, first-generation and rural students.  A Carleton University professor in public policy suggests that PSE be considered a "risky" investment that does not guarantee financial success, and recommends a system that has a generous loan-forgiveness policy for students who do not graduate.

Alarm as teachers dwindle
Guy Healy, The Australian
ENTRY scores for future teachers are predicted to fall despite criticism they are already too low, as demand for teaching places plummets across the nation.

Job prospects for graduates on the rise
Anna Patty, The Sydney Morning Herald
EMPLOYMENT prospects for new university graduates are on the rise, after the strongest job figures since 1990 were released yesterday. The highest proportion of graduates in employment had degrees in mining or civil engineering, pharmacy, medicine, nursing, dentistry, surveying and veterinary science.

Grab them while they're young, says sports chief
Natasha Wallace and Bonny Symons-Brown, The Sydney Morning Herald
THE obesity epidemic will not be solved until all primary school students are compelled to participate in sport, which had "drifted away" from the curriculum over the past 10 years, the head of the Australian Sports Commission has said. A crowded curriculum and pressured teachers who lacked physical education training had resulted in many schools either dropping or neglecting compulsory sport, said the commission's chief executive, Mark Peters.

An International Comparative Look at the “Crisis” of Public Higher Education among OECD Nations
Stéphan Vincent-Lancrin, Center for Studies in Higher Education, University of California, Berkeley
There is a wide consensus in some OECD countries that the expansion of higher education systems has led to its under-funding, especially where it relies on a traditional public governance model. “However, except for students, there has been no dramatic decline in funding and public funding of higher education institutions over the past 15 years,” notes Vincent-Lancrin. In most countries for which information is available, only a small part of financial aid to students seems to ultimately go to educational institutions: it can thus generally not be seen as a new way of indirectly financing tertiary education institutions through more competitive market mechanisms or vouchers. In the case of research, there is more evidence of a shift towards a different allocation of public funding: between 1981 and 2003, the percentage of public research funding allocated through general university funds has dropped from 78% to 65% in the 16 OECD countries for which information is available for both years. The paper points to other possible reasons for the perceived crisis.

Deciding on Postsecondary Education: Final Report
The National Postsecondary Education Cooperative
The focus of the project was the process that students go through when making college decisions -- the steps they take and when, what information they look for, where they look, and who they interact with.   In general, while there is no shortage of information available, the need for comprehensible information, additional resources, and improved assistance for prospective college students and their families was clearly identified.  Especially for low income and first generation college students who often make college related decision based on inaccurate perceptions and perpetuated myths.  This situation is perhaps most acute with respect to financial aid.  Our work supports the contention that you and Laura Perna made in 2001, that "Merely making financial aid available for students to attend college is not enough."  Without the provision of clear, practical, actionable information students will continue to fail to take full advantage of the aid opportunities that exist.  We have taken to saying that it is not lack of aid that prevents students from attending college, it's lack of information about aid. The research suggests findings of interest to college administrators as well. 

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.