Afternoon Announcements: May 16, 2012

As the days get warmer and spring starts creeping toward summer, high schools around the country are starting to prepare for Graduation Day.

Today, we get two separate profiles on high school graduates who faced long odds, but who will be receiving their high school diplomas. The first, from the Journal News (Hamilton, OH), focuses on J’aime Murray, who had lost the ability to move when doctors removed a tumor from her brain in 2008. She missed months of school after her surgery and has spent her summers since eighth grade catching up. The second, from the Middletown Journal (OH), spotlights Jennifer Frongia, who spent time in two high schools and several home school programs before finding the right fit for her at Middletown’s Success Academy, which features smaller classrooms.

Reminding us how every high school graduate benefits the community in which they live is KUT, the public radio affiliate in Austin, Texas. Citing data from the Alliance for Excellent Education, the article points out that cutting the high school dropout rate in half in the Austin metro area would translate into $38 million more annually in earnings, an extra $59 million on home purchases, and $2.4 million annually on vehicles.

As the summer months begin to draw near, Soapbox Cincinnati focuses on the "summer slide." No, that's not the great ride at your local water park, it's a time when "many disadvantaged and/or low-income students experience a deterioration of concepts and skills they’ve learned throughout the year," the article notes. It spotlights Cincinnati Public Schools' "Fifth Quarter" program, which combines reading, writing, and arithmetic in the morning with fun outings in the afternoon to places like King's Island, the self-proclaimed "largest amusement and waterpark in the midwest." King's Island doesn't have a summer slide, but it does have a Aruba Tuba.

Afternoon Announcements: November 7, 2011

The Washington Times reports that key lawmakers and educators are growing increasingly pessimistic that Congress can pass a massive overhaul of federal education policy before the 2012 election-year battles doom any hopes for major bipartisan legislation. To that point, Alliance President Bob Wise is quoted, saying, “Education is really about the only issue left that has not managed to make itself totally toxic. If Congress really resents the waiver proposal, then they have an obligation to act now. It’s not fair to states to begin implementing significant changes and then suddenly change all of the rules on them. The longer Congress waits, the more the waivers take effect.”

Gaston Caperton, president of the College Board, writes about education and the 2012 election in a Huffington Post op-ed.

Middle and high school science classes are holding kids’ interests; surveys show the number of college freshmen interested in majoring in a STEM field (science, technology, engineering, and math) is on the rise. But as these new coeds fight their way upstream through a flood of calculus, physics, and chemistry in lecture halls with hundreds of other students, the excitement quickly wanes leaving many swimming for shore. Read more in the New York Times about on why science majors change their minds.

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: