Afternoon Announcements: AFTPresident Randi Weingarten Says Teachers Need Time with Common Core

“Although the two of us have disagreed about several school-reform issues, we strongly believe that the Common Core State Standards, voluntarily adopted by 45 states, is one of the most promising education initiatives of the past half century.” A powerful opinion piece from two scholars. Wall Street Journal

American Federal of Teachers President Randi Weingarten explains how she would teach the Common Core. First, she reiterated that teachers are supportive of the new standards but they need time and practice to get it right before they should be evaluated on teaching them. State Impact

The Buena Vista School District in Michigan succumbed to budgetary restraints and closed their schools for the year, even though the academic year shouldn’t end until the middle of June. Students will attend “skills camp.” Huffington Post

More than half of college graduates surveyed in a recent study said they would choose a different major or “do things differently if they had to do it all over again.” The study, conducted by the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. in conjunction with online student hub Chegg, involved more than 4,900 graduates. CNBC Read Entire Post

Afternoon Announcements: July 12, 2012

Today’s afternoon announcements cover college completion, standards-based grading, how the health-care ruling might affect education, and getting dropouts to come back to school. There’s a little something for everyone, unless you’re looking for the latest news on Olympic water polo, in which case we’ve got nothing for you. Away we go.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will announce tomorrow in Williamsburg, Virginia that the United States had about 100,000 more postsecondary graduates in 2010 than in 2009. Census data show that the percentage of adults aged 25 to 34 with a postsecondary degree increased half a percentage point between 2009-2010. This is an extremely slow increase in the number of degrees, to be sure. The Huffington Post has more.

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Afternoon Announcements--October 21, 2011

Happy Friday! The big news today is the legislation passed last night by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee to overhaul the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), currently known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

Several media outlets have articles on the legislation:

Education Week writes that HELP Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) hopes to move the bill to the floor of the Senate before Thanksgiving, and believes it's "possible" that Congress could approve a rewritten version of the nation's main education law before Christmas--in time to negate the need for the Obama administration's waiver plan. The article also has a list of amendments that were passed, rejected, and withdrawn.

The Washington Post notes that the government would stop supervising the performance of 95 percent of the nation's schools under the bill passed by the HELP Committee. It says only 5 percent of a state's worst-performing schools would be subject to federal oversight under the measure. Indeed, that feature of the bill has drawn criticism from organizations representing low-income students, students of color, students with disabilities, among others because these students often attend schools that are not in the lowest 5 percent of performers overall and slip through the cracks. For example, Alliance President Bob Wise has noted that nearly 200,000 students of color drop out of high schools with estimated graduation rates above 60 percent. Education Week has more details on the organizations' objections to this provision.

CQ.com writes that the bill would depart from current law by removing the much-criticized accountability system that requires all students to be proficient in math and reading by 2014. Instead, it would require states to adopt "college- and career-ready" standards and develop statewide accountability systems to receive federal funding. The article also delves into the committee's debate on options for struggling schools and highly qualified teacher language.

The Alliance's "High School Soup" blog also has reactions to the legislation from members of the HELP Committee in an earlier blog post.

Now that you've gotten your fill of ESEA/NCLB, here are the rest of today's top education headlines:

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Morning Announcements: September 27, 2011

According to the New York Times, a report that is set to be released on Tuesday shows the percentage of students making it to the finish line at college is barely budging despite ever-increasing enrollment in college. The group, Complete College America, is a nonprofit founded two years ago with financing from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Lumina Foundation and others. Its report, which had the cooperation of 33 governors, showed how many of the students in states completed their degrees, broken down into different categories, including whether enrollment is full- or part-time, or at a two- or four-year institution.

Over objections from Republicans on Capitol Hill, President Obama is making it clear he will proceed with his blueprint education reform and an overhaul of the Bush-era No Child Left Behind law. And this time, Mr. Obama will have some bipartisan cover, as many Republican governors are backing his approach, according to the Washington Times.

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July 25 Issue of Straight A's Is Available

The July 25, 2011 issue of Straight A's, the Alliance's biweekly newsletter is now available.

This week's issue focuses on President Obama's Education Roundtable with key leaders from the nation's businesses; a new Alliance study showing the annual income difference between a high school dropout and a high school graduate in every state (It's an average of $8,000); and new reports on the economy's need for more college graduates and the link between school discipline and high school dropouts in Texas.

Individual articles from this week's issue are listed below or you can download a .pdf of the entire newsletter at http://www.all4ed.org/files/Volume11No15.pdf.

 

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Report Round-Up

Education and the Economy: Boosting the Nation’s Economy by Improving High School Graduation Rates Among Students of Color and Native Students from the Alliance for Excellent Education. This report demonstrate the economic benefits that the nation as a whole would likely see by improving the high school graduation rates of students of color and Native students.

The rise of K-12 blended learning: Profiles of emerging models from the Innosight Institute. This white paper seeks to provide a working definition of blended learning, along with a framework for mapping and defining blended-learning models.

2010 Distance Education Survey Results – Trends in eLearning: Tracking the Impact of eLearning at Community Colleges from the Instructional Technology Council. This survey finds that community colleges reported a 9% increase in their distance education enrollments from 2009 to 2010. The increase was found to be higher than the 8% increase in overall student enrollment at two-year institutions.

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Morning Announcements: March 22, 2011

Today at the first annual Building a GradNation Summit,  Vice President Joe Biden announced a new campaign calling for states to boost their college graduation rates. The effort includes a $20 million Comprehensive Grant Program for states that carry out plans intended to increase their graduation rates. The administration also released a tool kit of strategies to help governors meet college graduation goals, like stabilizing tuition increases, singling out adults with some college experience but no degree, and making it easier for students to transfer college credits. Read stories by the Associated Press and the New York Times.

Also released at the summit was a report finding that the number of U.S. schools considered "dropout factories" has decreased by 6.4 percent between 2008 and 2009, Education Week reports. Read more about this report in a piece written by the report authors in the Huffington Post. The Hartford Courant also writes about what these report findings mean for Connecticut.

The Contra Costa Times reports on a new study finding that more than 10 percent of California school districts are in financial trouble. 

Florida Education Commissioner Eric Smith will resign at the end of this school year according to the Miami Herald.

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State of the Union Bingo Results Are In!!

During his State of the Union address on January 25, President Obama said America's future success will require it to "out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build" the rest of the world. He called for a new law to replace the No Child Left Behind Act in 2011 and repeated his goal that America will once again lead the world in the highest proportion of college graduates. In response, Alliance President Bob Wise said, "President Obama made ‘winning the future' the theme of his State of the Union address, but that requires quick federal action to change an education system that often lives in the past." Read Gov. Wise's complete statement.

Bingo Results: All three versions of the Alliance for Excellent Education's State of the Union Bingo cards had at least one instance of Bingo. Complete results for each card, including references to what context, if any, a term or phrase was used during the speech, are available at http://www.all4ed.org/files/2011SOTUBingoWrapUp.pdf

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Morning Announcements: June 21, 2010

A new University of Chicago report finds that people who receive GEDs fare little better economically than high school dropouts when factors such as their greater academic abilities are taken into consideration

According to a survey of 2,000 of last year’s college graduates, 80 percent moved back home after getting their diplomas.

The Detroit News editorial board is against recent legislation that would allow Michigan community colleges to grant four-year degrees in select high-need job areas.

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More than One Third of Recent High School Dropouts Living in Poverty

High school dropouts aged 25 to 34 years old were twice as likely to be living below the poverty line in 2008, according to a recent report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS).

The report, Poverty in the United States: 2008, finds that 34.7 percent of 25-34 year olds without a high school diploma were living in poverty in 2008, compared to 16.7 percent of individuals whose highest level of educational attainment was a high school diploma. Conversely, only 4.4 percent of individuals aged 25-34 with at least a bachelor's degree were considered poor.

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