|
|
| |
COMMENTARY
|
|
Re-Thinking the Postsecondary Transition
April 16, 2010
WATSON SCOTT SWAIL, President & CEO, Educational Policy Institute
Recently I’ve been talking with many of the college access professionals who work with students in the transition from secondary to postsecondary school. For those who are more affluent, the idea of summer programs abroad or other bridges before college are more the norm than the exception. But for those from lower- and middle-income families, high school ends, summer happens, and college begins—all with the push to get the degree and on to a career.
The push for more higher education has reduced the gap that our youth have to acclimate and mature before college. In many of our programs, we push bridge programs to allow students to get used to campus and perhaps catch up on mathematics and other college-related skills. We understand that, when done well, these programs can have a positive impact on future college success, albeit the empirical evidence is limited due to lack of studies on this issue.
But for traditional college-aged youth, those who are 17 or 18 years of age, college is a different animal that requires a maturity that many just do not possess at that age. Moreso, how many college students really know what they want to do when they grow up? Probably not a very high percentage. READ MORE...
|
|
| |
| STATISTIC OF THE WEEK |
|
The average reading score for fourth-graders in 2009 was unchanged from the score in 2007, but was higher than the scores in other earlier assessment years from 1992 to 2005. The average reading score for eight-graders in 2009 was one point higher than in 2007 and four points higher than in 1992.
Source: The Nation’s Report Card 2009, NAEP
|
|
| |
THE NEWS
|
|
ACADEMIC PREPARATION
|
|
Maryland proposes education reforms for Race to the Top competition
By Michael Bimbaum, The Washington Post
Maryland education officials charted a reform path Tuesday that would overhaul statewide exams, make student performance a factor in teacher evaluations and toughen graduation requirements in math and science. They hope their proposal will make the state eligible for millions of dollars in federal education aid. The 257-page proposal is the draft of an application for President Obama's $4 billion Race to the Top competition. Maryland is seeking to win as much as $250 million.
NEA plan for rewriting NCLB departs from Obama’s
By Stephen Sawchuk, Education Week
The National Education Association has put forward its most detailed recommendations to date for the overhaul of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, in what a union official calls a new approach for the federal law. “We think there is a real opportunity for policymakers to change the framework of what’s in the statute,” said Donna Harris-Aikens, the director of education policy and practice for the 3.2 million-member union. “I don’t think there was an appetite for doing that during the last time around. It probably doesn’t mean every single word [in ESEA] is going to change, but we’re using this as a way to start a discussion.”
Parents work to rejuvenate a public school
By Kristen Graham, The Philadelphia Inquirer
A handful of playground moms brainstormed the plan and presented it to a Philadelphia School District official last fall as a blueprint for a vibrant neighborhood school. The school, Andrew Jackson Elementary at 12th and Federal, has failed to meet state standards for several years running. Seventy-six percent of its students are poor. Student outcomes have caused the district to classify Jackson an "empowerment" school, among the lowest performers in the city. Still, the moms want to send their children, now toddlers, there. The needs of the nondescript brick school building are big, but they will raise money, they swear.
|
|
| |
| POST SECONDARY ACCESS SUCCESS |
|
‘Career ready’ vs. ‘College ready’
By David Moltz, InsideHigherEd
Though the terms “college ready” and “career ready” have been used together in many education plans in recent years, a new paper from the Association for Career and Technical Education argues they are not the same. “While there is no debate that a rigorous level of academic proficiency, especially in math and literacy, is essential for any post-high school endeavor, the reality is that it takes much more to be truly considered ready for a career,” the paper reads.
Most research on campus diversity suffers from being only skin deep, new studies suggest
By Peter Schmidt, The Chronicle of Higher Education
A new collection of studies suggests that the success of minority college students and students' perceptions of race relations on their campuses are strongly influenced by factors that actually have little direct connection with ethnicity or race. Among the studies, all published in the spring issue of New Directions for Institutional Research, is an analysis of University of California student survey data that concludes that students' choice of academic major plays a greater role than their race in determining how much discrimination they perceive on campus. Moreover, having large numbers of racially and culturally sensitive students might paradoxically cause a campus's reputation for tolerance to suffer, because such students are more likely to perceive and report bigotry around them.
Need more college aid? Negotiate
By Associated Press, The Chicago SunTimes
Private schools are quietly using financial aid to help attract the students they want in a challenging economy. And parents and their kids are at the negotiating table. Coupled with a tough economy, it's no wonder more families are applying for financial aid than ever before. Applications for federal student aid rose 21 percent to 6.6 million in last year's first quarter, the peak period for applications. Applications from Illinois students are on a record pace this year.
|
|
| |
| INTERNATIONAL NEWS |
|
U.S. falls short in measure of future math teachers
By Sam Dillon, The New York Times
America’s future math teachers, on average, earned a C on a new test comparing their skills with their counterparts in 15 other countries, significantly outscoring college students in the Philippines and Chile but placing far below those in educationally advanced nations like Singapore and Taiwan. The researchers who led the math study in this country, to be released in Washington on Thursday, judged the results acceptable if not encouraging for America’s future elementary teachers. But they called them disturbing for American students heading to careers in middle schools, who were outscored by students in Germany, Poland, the Russian Federation, Singapore, Switzerland and Taiwan.
Fewer dropouts, more state students
By Rebecca Attwood, The Times Higher Education
Universities have reduced their dropout rates and succeeded in attracting more students from state schools into higher education, according to new figures. Data published today by the Higher Education Statistics Agency show that among students starting full-time first degrees in the UK in 2007-08, the proportion who had dropped out a year later was 8.6 per cent, down from 9 per cent in 2006-07. Meanwhile, the proportion of young full-time undergraduate entrants from state schools rose to 89 per cent in 2008-09, up from 88.5 per cent the previous year. However, data on changes to the proportion of students from lower socio-economic groups are not available due to a change in the question asked of applicants on the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service form.
Aboriginal urbanites aspire first to higher education
By Joe Friesen, The Globe and Mail
Roughly half of Canada’s 1.2 million natives, Métis and Inuit now live in cities, and their hopes, values and experiences are the subject of the Urban Aboriginal Peoples Study, a major research survey released today by the Environics Institute. It found that, despite statistics that show significant gaps in aboriginal university and high-school graduation rates, the foremost life aspiration for urban aboriginal people is to pursue higher education. They describe it as a route to empowerment and a way to learn more about their history and culture, topics they say are ignored in the elementary and high-school curricula.
|
|
| |
| REPORTS WORTH READING |
|
Pathway to the Baccalaureate: How One Community College is Helping Underprepared Students Succeed
The New America Foundation's Education Policy Program released a policy paper by Richard Whitmire, former president of the National Education Writers Association, and Camille Esch, Director of the New America Foundation's California Education Policy Program. It explains Northern Virginia Community College's approach to addressing the nation's college remediation crisis and includes extensive interviews with students and staff associated with the program. The paper is especially timely given President Obama's goal of graduating five million additional students from colleges and universities by 2020.
“Fix the City Schools” lacks meaningful research to support its claims
A recent Reason Foundation report points to the post-Katrina school system in New Orleans as evidence to support massive decentralizing of urban school systems. But a Think Twice review of the report concludes that it lacks evidence for its claims and ignores key facts about the New Orleans situation that would undermine its case. The report draws heavily on the author's claims that the post-Katrina New Orleans schools, a highly decentralized system in which 60 percent of students attend charter schools and the traditional public schools have much greater autonomy, have experienced remarkably improved student achievement.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| UPCOMING EVENTS |
| |
| |
|
RETENTION 2010, International Conference on Student Success, June 9-11, 2010, Chicago, IL
|
|
|
