GUEST COMMENTARY

And So This is Christmas...

DR. WATSON SCOTT SWAIL President & CEO, Educational Policy Institute

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to all. This time of year always provides us with an opportunity to slow down (ok, not always) and take stock of what we've witnessed or accomplished during the past twelve months.

In many ways, this has been a year less about education and more about nation building and politics. The year was ushered in by the promise of a new President, full of hope and promise. Less than a year later, we see a president who has lost much of his approval ratings, has promised another 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, is losing the battle on health care, and has, at least until this point today, been unable to budge the world on climate change. It's been a tough first year for President Obama. READ MORE...

More than one in five borrowers of federal student loans who attend commercial colleges default within three years of beginning repayment, according to new figures being made available on Monday by the Department of Education. Historically, the government has reported such figures in terms of how many students default within two years — a figure that stands at 6.7 percent of student borrowers over all and about 11 percent at commercial colleges. But the new three-year numbers, though preliminary, give a clearer picture of whether a student at a particular college will default, and the government will soon begin using them to help decide which colleges qualify for taxpayer-supported student-aid programs.
Source: New York Times

NYC School Kids Face Paying to Ride to School
Karen Matthews, Associated Press
The cash-strapped agency that runs New York City subways and buses is considering a proposal to end free rides for schoolchildren, a move that would cost half a million city students nearly $1,000 per year in transportation costs. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is to vote Wednesday on a proposed budget for next year that cuts several bus and subway routes and phases out student MetroCards.

Reassurance Offered on 'Race to Top' Availability    
Michele McNeil, Education Week
As states consider whether to apply for the first or second round of Race to the Top Fund grants under the economic-stimulus program, the U.S. Department of Education is emphasizing that they shouldn’t worry about being first in line to win a piece of the $4 billion being awarded. “We promise there will be plenty of money left in phase two,” Joanne Weiss, the department’s Race to the Top director, told states.

British High Court Says Jewish School’s Ethnic-Based Admissions Policy Is Illegal
Sarah Lyall, NY Times
Britain’s Supreme Court declared Wednesday that it was illegal for a Jewish school that favors Jewish applicants to base its admissions policy on a classic test of “Jewishness” — whether one’s mother is Jewish. The student suing is not considered a Jew by the school because his mother converted in a progressive, not Orthodox, synagogue.

Education Bill Weakened, Critics Say
James Vaznis, Boston Globe
Over the past two months, more than 20,000 teachers and their supporters have bombarded Beacon Hill with letters, e-mails, and phone calls, urging legislators not to give superintendents unprecedented authority to ignore union rules as they overhaul troubled schools. So far the lobbying has paid off. The education bill approved by the Senate last month eliminated several controversial proposals, including a provision that would have allowed superintendents to dismiss any teacher at a failing school regardless of job performance.

Bill Seeks More Fresh Produce in U.S. School Meals
Charles Abbott, Reuters
The government would spend $150 million to put more fresh fruits and vegetables into school meals under a bill filed by 16 lawmakers on Wednesday. The bill would require the Agriculture Department, which oversees school meals, to remove barriers to the larger use of fresh fruits and vegetables in school feeding programs. It also obliges USDA to promote salad bars as a way to encourage consumption of fresh produce.

At Many Colleges, Early Applications Rise
Jacques Steinberg, NY Times
This was the year when the frenzy to gain early admission to the nation’s most selective colleges seemed likely to subside, at least in part because a student admitted under a binding early program cannot seek competing financial aid offers as leverage to negotiate a better package. With the influx in admissions across the country, more students look to reserve their college place early-on.

Online Colleges Surge with Marketing to Military
Daniel Golden, Business Week
For-profit online colleges are taking over higher education of the U.S. military, lured by a Defense Department pledge of free schooling up to $4,500 a year for active members of the armed services, costing taxpayers more than $3 billion since 2000. The schools account for 29 percent of college enrollments and 40 percent of the half-billion-dollar annual tab in federal tuition assistance for active-duty students, displacing public and private nonprofit colleges, according to Defense Department and military data.
 
Reactions: Is It Time for Class-Based Affirmative Action?
The Chronicle of Higher Education
A new study from Public Agenda has found that the main reason students drop out of college is that they have to work. That raises the question: Has the time come for an affirmative-action policy based on socioeconomic status? And that raises a further question: Are the selective institutions that could provide enough financial aid to needy students, so they could work less, doing enough to recruit them?

Colleges Turn the Economic Crisis Into a Lesson Plan
Lisa Foderaro, NY Times               
The financial crisis has brought upheaval to many corners of American life, but on college campuses around the country the turmoil is being embraced as a valuable teaching tool. Academics say they cannot recall a time when so much of the curriculum has had to be revised so quickly to reflect the sweeping developments in the economy. Business schools and economics departments are at the forefront of the overhaul, unveiling new courses and revamping existing ones.

Placing a Value on a College Degree
Sue Shellenbarger, Wall Street Journal               
For students focused on post-graduation income, a new online calculator, called The Human Capital Score, will project your likely income range for 10 years after graduation based on your test scores, high school and college attended, grades and major. Separately, more general pay data by college and major are available at Payscale.com.

Sick Leave Blowing School Budgets
Suzanne Smith, ABC News- Australia
This month, 344 primary schools in New South Wales asked the Department of Education for what is known as a "short-term relief budget allocation". To translate the jargon, it means those 344 schools have not been able to survive on their global budgets - the money the Department hands out for essential educational and teaching resources. At the heart of the matter is the way schools are funded for employment costs such as sick leave.

Students Can Enter Virtual World to Test School Design
BBC News
Students and teachers in Birmingham will be able to test plans for rebuilding schools using a computer-game style virtual world. A project linking universities and software developers will allow schools to experiment with different furniture layouts and building designs. It has been likened to playing a computer game in which characters can move around a 3D environment. Birmingham has plans to rebuild or refurbish 82 secondary schools.

Big Ideas: 'Womenomics' Promises Some Wrenching Changes -- Particularly for Men
Daphne Bramham, Vancouver Sun
Millennia of male dominance in workplaces, governments, companies and countries could come to an end in the next few decades. This revolutionary power shift isn't due to social programs or social engineering. It's about economics. Some call it "womenomics" because women already account for 80 per cent of all purchasing decisions. More formidably, women may soon be the primary breadwinners. It's a trend that began more than 30 years ago as women flooded into colleges, universities and trade schools.

Schools of Their Own
Ottawa Citizen
In Canada, about one-third of aboriginal youth have parents who went to residential schools. The abuse that children endured in these school systems has been linked with the ongoing pathologies afflicting aboriginal communities in Canada, including violence, alcoholism and depression. One consequence of the school experience at residential schools is that it created, among First Nations peoples, a distrust of educational institutions.

Student Loans Delays Continue over Christmas
Angela Harrison, BBC News
The latest figures from the Student Loans Company suggest 28,000 people from England are still waiting to receive their loans and grants. Another 38,000 still have applications in the pipeline, although nearly half of these have had most of their money.

STEM in the States
This publication provides information on important indicators of the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and workforces in each state in comparative perspective. These data are presented alongside many common indicators of economic well-being such as median household incomes, state gross domestic product, poverty rate, and home ownership rates.

Universal Access to a Quality Education: Research and Recommendations for the Elimination of Curricular Stratification
This policy brief makes the case for schools across the country to put an end to policies that cast off students into unchallenging, low-track classrooms. The authors recommend a clear process for the phasing out of curricular stratification in grades K-10, beginning with the lowest track and granting meaningful access to AP and IB courses to all students. The brief includes model statutory language to implement its recommendations.

2010 Education Appropriations Guide
This issue brief is intended to be a helpful guide to the appropriations process and recently enacted fiscal year 2010 education funding. It includes an analysis of funding for major education programs and a timeline of the 2010 appropriations process. It also includes exclusive tables comparing 2010 funding to prior years, the president's budget request, and funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Taking Stock: Higher Education and Latinos
The focus of this brief is to reconcile what we know with what we hear to inform what we can do to address the realities facing Latino students in a manner integrated into the broader policy agenda and discussions in higher education. This brief takes stock of the current higher education environment and integrates the perspectives of elected officials, students, and service providers from interviews and focus groups with data to better understand the role of Latinos in the future access, persistence, and completion of higher education in the United States and puts this information together to articulate what we can do to address critical policy issues affecting Latino students in the current higher education context.