COMMENTARY

Leading by (a bad) Example

May 21, 2010

WATSON SCOTT SWAIL, President & CEO, Educational Policy Institute

On May 20, The Texas State Board of Education voted to what some people have called "whitewashing" the history and social studies curriculum in the state to counterbalance "liberal-leaning academics."

Some of the changes debated included adding and deleting current political figures from third-grade social studies standards, dismissing the "socialist" United Migrant Workers, and adding the Republican Chief Justice to the curriculum while excluding former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros. READ MORE...

Among people in the 25-29 age group, 9% of women and 6% of men held either a master`s, professional (such as law or medical), or doctoral degree. This holds true for White, Black, and Hispanic women. Among Asian men and women of this age group, there was no statistical difference. Additionally, 87% of adults 25 and older had a high school diploma or more in 2009, with 30% holding at least a bachelor`s degree. The number of U.S. residents with bachelor`s degrees or more climbed 34% between 1999 and 2009, from 43.8 million to 58.6 million. More than half (53%) of Asians 25 and older had a bachelor`s degree or more, much higher than the rate for non-Hispanic Whites (33%), Blacks (19%), and Hispanics (13%).

Source: Educational Attainment in the US: 2009. U.S. Census Bureau

THE NEWS

ACADEMIC PREPARATION

Analysis ties 4th grade reading failure to poverty
By Debra Viadero, Education Week
Eighty-five percent of poor 4th graders in predominantly low-income schools are failing to reach “proficient” levels in reading on federal tests, according to a new study by a national foundation that is gearing up to lead a 10-year effort to raise 3rd graders’ reading proficiency. “The evidence is clear that those students who do not read well have a very tough time succeeding in school and graduating from high schools and going on to successful careers and lives,” Ralph R. Smith, the executive vice president of the Baltimore-based Annie E. Casey Foundation, said in an interview. “The Casey Foundation is putting a stake in the ground on grade-level reading by the end of the 3rd grade.”

Plan B: Skip college
By Jacques Steinberg, The New York Times
The idea that four years of higher education will translate into a better job, higher earnings and a happier life has been pounded into the heads of schoolchildren, parents and educators. But there’s an underside to that conventional wisdom. Perhaps no more than half of those who began a four-year bachelor’s degree program in the fall of 2006 will get that degree within six years, according to the latest projections from the Department of Education. For college students who ranked among the bottom quarter of their high school classes, the numbers are even more stark: 80 percent will probably never get a bachelor’s degree or even a two-year associate’s degree.

Senate committee approves school voucher bill
By Chris Megerian, Nothjersey.com
A Senate committee approved legislation today creating scholarships for students to attend private schools during a racous hearing held in front of the Statehouse Annex building. Hundreds of demonstrators, mostly students from private and charter schools, gathered to rally for the bill. Supporters said it provides students a chance to leave failing public schools, while opponents said it undermines the public school system.

College wait lists grow as schools hedge bets on enrollment numbers
By Daniel de Vise, The Washington Post
This spring, some colleges in the Washington region have assembled waiting lists that rival the size of their incoming freshman classes, a measure of their uncertainty at a volatile time in higher education. The swelling of wait lists in the past two years reflects the lingering economic downturn and an increasingly cautious approach in admissions offices. The recession has made it more difficult for admissions officers to discern which admitted students are likely to attend and has sapped endowments, leaving colleges less inclined to risk tuition dollars by failing to fill their freshman classes.

Path to a degree no longer a straight shot
By Christopher Magan, Dayton Daily News
Todd Lewis has been working toward earning his biology degree for more than two decades, attending multiple schools and taking time off to work and raise a family. In June, the Kettering resident will finally receive his biology degree, but while his journey is unusual, stories like Lewis’ are becoming more common at colleges across Ohio and the nation. The traditional four-year path to a college degree is changing because of the vast demographic of college-eligible students.

Community colleges’ unfunded mandate
By David Moltz, InsideHighered
President Obama, foundation leaders and the heads of advocacy groups all agree that community colleges need to focus on more than access and drastically improve their generally low completion rates. By and large, these leaders believe that these institutions know, whether by research or common sense, just what to do – such as providing better academic advising, outreach to struggling students, financial aid to encourage full-time enrollment, smaller class sizes and so forth. So what’s the holdup?

Participation is widening, just not at the elite end
By Rebecca Attwood, Times Higher Education
Selective universities are being urged to review their spending on bursaries, scholarships and outreach "as a matter of urgency", as new research shows that access to the UK’s elite institutions has stalled. Although recent data show an improvement in the proportion of disadvantaged young people entering higher education as a whole, a study examining only the most selective universities, published this week by the Office for Fair Access, found that there had been no improvement since the mid-2000s.

Students given no guidance by university staff
By Bernard Lane, The Australian
"Somehow universities, with all the financial constraints that they face, are going to have to find a way for students to interact with staff," said researcher Hamish Coates from the Australian Council for Educational Research. His survey of 25,000-odd undergraduates at 30 universities is the biggest yet and one of the rare studies to go beyond a popularity contest by asking students what they actually do inside and outside lecture halls. Just over 50 per cent of students never talked careers with their teachers, 46.7 per cent never raised for discussion ideas from class and 32.2 per cent did not raise their results with lecturers or tutors.

Hong Kong shares its plans to become a major academic hub
By Ian Wilhelm, The Chronicle of Higher Education
Hong Kong's secretary of education traveled the United States this month to discuss how the territory's overhaul of its education system would affect its international programs and the thousands of Hong Kong students who come to America to study each year. Raymond H.C. Wong met with representatives from several high schools and universities in New York, San Francisco, and Washington, as well as with officials of the U.S. Department of Education and the Institute of International Education. In an interview with The Chronicle, Mr. Wong said the education changes are part of a continuing effort to turn the Chinese territory into a major academic center in Southeast Asia and to forge stronger global partnerships with American institutions and others.

ELL Report Asks a Question It Can’t Answer
A recent Center on Education Policy (CEP) report asks, Has Progress Been Made in Raising Achievement for English Language Learners? and finds that states have generally made progress in increasing the achievement of English Language Learners (ELLs) under No Child Left Behind. But a review of that report finds that the conclusions drawn are not supported by the evidence presented. The CEP report was reviewed for the Think Twice think tank review project. In his review, Professor and Director of the Applied Linguistics Program at Arizona State University Jeff MacSwan, finds two principal flaws with the study.

Successful Practices that Address the Underutilization of Financial Aid in Community Colleges
This inaugural report by the College Board Advocacy & Policy Center highlights successful practices that help community college students take greater advantage of financial aid. The report, developed in collaboration with the American Association of Community Colleges, noted that low- and moderate-income community college students are least likely then their four-year counterparts to apply for federal aid. During the 2007-08 academic year, 58 percent of Pell Grant-eligible community college students applied to federal financial aid,  compared to 77 percent of students at public four-year institutions.

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

The Swail Letter (May 2010).
In this issue: Trends in International Education Enrollment.