Report Round-Up

Community College Estimated Growth: Fall 2010 from the American Association of Community Colleges. This report provides enrollment counts for credit enrollment 2000–2010 and finds that although enrollment has continued to increase, the rate of increase has slowed in comparison to previous years.

Data for Action 2010 from Data Quality Campaign. This report finds that despite progress in recent years, 11 states still cannot link data from schools with information from colleges.

Improving Middle Grades Mathematics Performance from EdSource. This analysis examines the relationship between students' 7th grade math scores on the California Standards Tests (CSTs), their 8th grade mathematics placements, and their subsequent performance on either the Algebra I CST or the General Mathematics CST.

Morning Announcements: February 15, 2011

The New York Times reports that school budget cuts have caused some Texas school leaders to get creative in efforts to raise cash.

In Hawaii, dozens of supports are fighting to prevent the closure of three smaller schools in Honolulu.

The Community College Times tells the story of Toby Dewayne Daughtery and how, with a little help from his community college, he completely turned his life around.

As many as 50,000 home-schooled children would have to be registered with the state for the first time under newly proposed legislation that is drawing fire from parents who teach their children themselves and from social conservatives, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

Morning Announcements: November 22, 2010

The Sunshine News in Florida takes a look at Florida’s graduation rate and how it was calculated.

The New York Times writes about computers and cellphones and the constant stream of stimuli they offer as well as the challenges that they present to focusing and learning. Also in the Times, columnist Thomas Friedman discusses Arne Duncan’s “national teacher campaign”, an effort to take the profession much more seriously and elevate it to where it should be.

In the Providence Journal, education columnist Julia Steiny writes, “Written word builds bridges between school and home.”

Report Round-Up

Competitive Grant Making and Education Reform: Assessing Race to the Top's Current Impact and Future Prospects

Student Learning Expectations Gap Can Be Twice the Size of National Black-White Achievement Gap from the American Institutes for Research. This report finds that the gap in what students are expected to know in each state varies so greatly that the difference in student expectations between the states with the most rigorous assessments and those with the least stringent is twice the size of the national black-white achievement gap.

Degree Completion Beyond Institutional Borders: Responding to the New Reality of Mobile and Nontraditional Learners from the Center for American Progress. This report describes the avenues that colleges, states, and other organizations take to recognize prior learning and transfer credit, and it points out the flaws in these policies that block students from efficiently garnering credit as they move through and among higher education institutions.

Morning Announcements: October 26, 2010

New York Times education reporter Sam Dillon writes about a 10 page letter that the Department of Education sent to thousands of school districts and colleges today urging them to ensure that they are complying with their responsibilities to prevent bullying.

The Charleston Gazette editorial staff focuses on the imperiled future of high school dropouts and explains how 70 percent of young Americans in the 17-to-24 age bracket are unfit to join the U.S. military.

The Montgomery Advertiser examines new laws that try to keep teens in school in Alabama. In the story, Sen. Arthur Orr described a report from the Alliance for Excellent Education that found that students who dropped out in 2008 will cost the state of Alabama $1 billion in lost wages over their lifetimes as “draw-dropping”. "You've really got two costs," Orr said. "The human cost to the individual who doesn't reach his or her full potential ... and the financial cost to our state and our country."It's tremendous."

Report Round-Up

Now What? Imperatives and Options for Common Core Implementation and Governance from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Most states have adopted the “Common Core” English language arts and math standards, and most are also working on common assessments. In this report, the authors ask but…now what?

Promoting Quality: State Strategies for Overseeing Dual Enrollment Programs from the National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships. This study documents the strategies that six states employ to ensure that college courses offered to high school students are of the same high quality and rigor as courses offered to matriculated college students.

Minorities in Higher Education 2010 – Twenty-Fourth Status Report from the American Council on Education. This report finds that young Hispanics and African Americans have made no appreciable progress in postsecondary attainment as compared to their older peers, and attainment rates have dipped for the youngest group (aged 25-34). Note: This report costs $30.00 for non-members and $27.00 for ACE member institutions.

Divided We Fail: Improving Completion and Closing Racial Gaps in California’s Community Colleges from the Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy. This study looks at an alarming trend at California’s community colleges and finds that the vast majority of students hoping to earn an associate degree or a vocational certificate drop out instead.

Stats That Stick: October 20, 2010

Total number of schools in Illinois that meet the national average of 180 full days of school this year: 1.-Chicago Tribune

Each generation of younger women in the United States is continuing to reach higher levels of postsecondary attainment, while the attainment levels of younger men are falling. –American Council on Education

Seventy percent of students seeking degrees at California's community colleges did not manage to attain them or transfer to four-year universities within six years. -Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy at California State University Sacramento

Today, 14 percent of Americans over the age of 16 -- about 30 million people -- have trouble with basic reading and writing skills and cannot read well enough to fill out a job application, follow a prescription, or even read a simple children's story.-Mike Castle during a House Education and Labor Committee, Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education Subcommittee Hearing last year

Morning Announcements: October 20, 2010

College graduation rates among young Americans, especially Latinos, are stagnating, according to the Wall Street Journal and a new report from the American Council on Education. Click here to view an interactive graph on the college attendance rates from the WSJ. The Washington Post also picked up on the study but focused on the finding that younger men are significantly less likely to have completed college than older men.

A new report from the Rhode Island Board of Governors for Higher Education finds that about 60 percent of students who graduated from public and private schools in 2005 and 2006 who enrolled at the Community College of Rhode Island needed remediation in one or more areas: reading, writing or math. To read more about the remediation problem on a national level, see the Alliance brief entitled Paying Double: Inadequate High Schools and Community College Remediation. While this RI study finds that high schools aren’t preparing students for community colleges, across the country, a report from the Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy at Cal State Sacramento finds that community colleges aren’t preparing students for the workforce. Specifically, the study finds that seventy percent of students seeking degrees at California's community colleges did not manage to attain them or transfer to four-year universities within six years.

Training to Finish the Race

A new report from American Institutes for Research (AIR) examines the high costs that taxpayers and state and federal governments incur when students drop out of college. Using data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) the report finds that between 2003 and 2008, states appropriated almost $6.2 billion to colleges and universities to help pay for the education of students who did not return for a second year. Additionally, states gave over $1.4 billion to students who did not return for a second year and the federal government contributed another $1.5 billion ─ mostly in the form of Pell Grants which are targeted to low-income students to increase their access to postsecondary institutions.

Finishing the First Lap: The Costs of First Year Student Attrition in America’s Four Year Colleges and Universities cites research finding that approximately 30 percent of students who start college this fall will not return to that college next year. The author, AIR vice president Mark Schneider, explains how public colleges and universities are subsidized through state appropriations and through state grants to students and that nationwide, these subsidies are close to $10,000 per student per year. Private higher education institutes are not exempt and are subsidized sometimes through state programs that support students in private schools or occasionally through state appropriations and always through the tax-exempt status of private not-for-profit institutions.

Morning Announcements: October 6, 2010

Yesterday, the Los Angeles Board of Education approved a court settlement that radically limits the traditional practice of laying off teachers strictly on the basis of seniority, the Los Angeles Times reports. According to the story, “The agreement does not scrap seniority as a factor in layoffs. Rather, layoffs based on seniority would be distributed evenly among district schools...No school would lose a disproportionate number of instructors. This marks a significant change because inexperienced teachers tend to be clustered in schools in low-income neighborhoods, putting those campuses at a disadvantage during every budget crisis.”

In South Carolina, education officials offer mixed views on extending the school year.

The Leading Source,  American School Board Journal’s Daily blog, covers a recent Alliance brief on the adolescent literacy crises.

At a summit held yesterday in Washington, DC, President Obama called community colleges the “unsung heroes of America’s education system,” and said they are more important than ever to U.S. competitiveness.

Washington state education officials are going on tour to get input on proposed new national academic standards for English and math, The Olympian reports. State superintendent Randy Dorn has tentatively adopted the standards, but is gathering more input before asking the Legislature to adopt them.