STATISTIC OF THE WEEK

According to a new report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 70.1% of 2009 high school graduates were enrolled in colleges or universities, representing a historic high for the publication series. For 2009 graduates, the college enrollment rate was 73.8 % for young women and 66.0 % for young men. The college enrollment rate of 2009 Asian graduates (92.2 %) was higher than for recent white (69.2 %), black (68.7 %), and Hispanic (59.3 %) graduates. Furthermore, approximately 6 in 10 recent high school graduates who were enrolled in college attended 4-year institutions.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

THE NEWS

ACADEMIC PREPARATION

Foundations Offer $506M for Education Innovation
By The Associated Press, Education Week
A coalition of wealthy foundations is offering up to half a billion dollars to match federal grants meant to encourage education reform, taking the pressure off schools scrambling to find the matching dollars they need to get the money. A dozen foundations plan to announce this week that they are investing $506 million, a portion of which is for a matching fund for the $650 million federal government grant program, called Investing in Innovation.

Virginia to launch standardized test for disabled students
By Michael Alison Chandler, The Washington Post
Virginia education leaders moved this week to introduce a standardized test for students with disabilities and phase out a widely used alternative that many officials say is undermining the state's accountability system. The modified multiple-choice test is expected to be more objective than the flexible, portfolio-style exam that thousands of students in Northern Virginia are assessed with now. The online test will be implemented statewide in the 2011-12 school year in math and the following year in reading. A small sample of schools will try it this spring.

Vermont will not seek federal education grant
By Associated Press, Boston Herald
Vermont will not seek millions of dollars in a federal grant program aimed at improving failing schools, joining a handful of states in dropping out of the "Race to the Top" program despite strapped budgets. The competitive grant requires states to link teacher pay to student performance and invest in charter schools, which would require policy and legislative changes in Vermont, commissioner Armando Vilaseca said Monday. After spending hundreds of hours reviewing the application and program, the state will not apply, Vilaseca said.

D.C. officials making progress in closing funding gap for teachers contract
By Bill Turque, The Washington Post
District officials have made "significant progress" in closing a funding gap in the proposed new teachers contract and hope to have a plan that will pass muster with the city's chief financial officer Friday, his spokesman said Thursday. David Umansky, spokesman for Natwar M. Gandhi, said school officials have promised to provide "new numbers" in time for Gandhi to present his analysis to the D.C. Council on Friday morning. Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee is scheduled to testify after Gandhi.

Comparing Higher Ed to Wall Street
By Doug Lederman, InsideHigherEd
Whenever worried leaders of for-profit colleges have implied in recent months that the U.S. Education Department is gunning for the institutions, officials of the federal agency have discouraged such talk, offering evenhanded rhetoric about treating all sectors the same in their push for increased accountability. The words have provided little reassurance to the colleges, since they haven't always seemed to square with the aggressive approach the Obama administration is taking in rewriting federal rules governing vocational and other programs.

Leave Internships to Us, College Presidents Tell Feds
By Sara Lipka, The Chronicle of Higher Education
Thirteen college presidents urged the federal government this week not to set educational standards for students' internships."We are troubled by the Department of Labor's apparent recent shift toward the regulation of internships," the presidents wrote on Wednesday in a letter to Hilda L. Solis, the labor secretary. "We urge great caution in changing an approach to learning that is viewed as a huge success by educators, employers, and students alike," said the group, led by the president of Northeastern University, Joseph E. Aoun.

Panel finds no favorite in teacher-prep pathways
By Debra Viadero, Education Week
After six years of study, a national panel of prominent scholars has concluded that there’s not enough evidence to suggest that teachers who take alternative pathways into the classroom are any worse­—or any better­—than those who finish traditional college-based preparation programs. The finding comes in a report released today by the National Research Council, which is an arm of the National Academies, a scientific body created to advise the federal government on scientific matters.

Singapore Plans Postgraduate Accountancy Program
By Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop, The New York Times
Aiming to turn Singapore into a leading center for international accountancy and financial management by 2020, a government-appointed committee this month recommended the introduction of a new, postgraduate accountancy qualification program characterized by “global recognition, international portability and Asian market value.” Aiming to turn Singapore into a leading center for international accountancy and financial management by 2020, a government-appointed committee this month recommended the introduction of a new, postgraduate accountancy qualification program characterized by “global recognition, international portability and Asian market value.”

U. of Oxford raises $100-Million for its 21st century school
By Aisha Labi, The Chronicle of Higher Education
The University of Oxford said Wednesday that it had raised $100-million in the past year for its James Martin 21st Century School, thanks to a $50-million challenge grant from the school's namesake. Mr. Martin, a British computing pioneer and Oxford's most generous benefactor, said in March 2009 that he would match up to $50-million in donations of at least $1-million to the school, which he had established in 2005 with a $100-million endowment. When he set his fund-raising challenge, Mr. Martin said in a telephone interview on Tuesday, "most people said this is the biggest economic meltdown in history—you'll never get people to give." He was also warned that "people in England don't give money."

Plunge in Chinese university students coming to Australia
By Michael Sainbury and Guy Healy, The Australian
AUSTRALIA'S $18 billion-a-year foreign students business is under pressure, with applications from its biggest market, China, forecast to plunge by as much as half for some universities and colleges. The country's second-biggest export sector after resources is quickly losing market share to the US and Britain due to soaring costs and uncertain government policies, a situation that could trigger further closures by local tertiary institutions. "There is certainly a degree of panic about Australia in the market here, and I am not sure if Australian institutions understand that," said Thomas Wang, the manager of Australian education at education agent China Star in Beijing.

Charter School Autonomy: A Half Broken Promise
This Fordham Institute study, conducted by Public Impact, finds that the typical charter school in America today lacks the autonomy it needs to succeed, once state, authorizer, and other impositions are considered. Though the average state earns an encouraging B+ for the freedom its charter law confers upon schools, individual state grades in this sphere range from A to F. Authorizer contracts add another layer of restrictions that, on average, drop schools' autonomy grade to B-.

Promoting a Culture of Student Success: How Colleges and universities Are Improving Degree Completion
The SREB report profiles 15 four-year public colleges and universities nationwide whose success in raising graduation rates may provide other institutions with practices and strategies that work to help more students succeed. The report profiles six public institutions in SREB states: Murray State and Western Kentucky universities in Kentucky, Delta State University in Mississippi, North Carolina Central and Elizabeth City State universities in North Carolina, and Sam Houston State University in Texas. All of the institutions in the report outperform similar colleges and universities by having relatively high graduation rates compared with similar institutions, based on criteria developed by SREB.

RETENTION 2010, International Conference on Student Success, June 9-11, 2010, Chicago, IL

Register for EPI's upcoming book club webinar May 22, 2010.