Morning Announcements April 18, 2012

Happy (and hopefully not hectic) Wednesday! It’s the middle of the week, so in between thanking your lucky stars that it’s not Monday or Tuesday and praying for Friday, get caught up on the latest in education news.

Presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney is coming under fire for expressing his intent to largely slash the Department of Education. The two-time Harvard professional degree recipient told a room full of campaign donors that he'd slim down the U.S. Department of Education if he were elected president, according to Education Week.

That battle for public schools continues in Chicago; between teacher unions, schools days, and funding, every day is a different fight. With changes to the length of next year's school day, a continuing budget deficit and ongoing teacher contract talks that pose the potential for a strike,  Chicago Public Schools principals are Read Entire Post

What Happens on Commencement Day Can Make a Big Difference on Tax Day

As Tax Day approaches, I’d like to take you away from frantically trying to fill out your IRS Form 1040 and its accompanying tax forms for just a minute to talk about how dropouts are making our country’s return smaller than it could be.

Tax policy usually finds two groups, those in favor of tax hikes and those in favor of tax cuts, debating about which direction taxes should take. Unfortunately, there is not enough discussion about a third direction to take that most everyone can agree on. In these economically tough times, there is a way through which America could increase tax revenues at all levels of government without changing the tax code: cut the high school dropout rate and trade dropouts for diplomas.

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Afternoon Announcements: April 9, 2012

Mondays are a little busy (and sluggish). Since we're bringing you the news a little later in the day today, that gave us ample opportunity to provide you with a little more. Enjoy!

Education Week poses an intriguing question regarding the potential effect of proposed budget cuts on your community’s K-12 program. If Congress forges ahead with big, giant across the board cuts set to hit (almost) every education program next January, the publication analyzes exactly what that would mean for you.

A way of gaging the expected impact of budget cuts in education programs in the look at schools in the state of Texas. The New York Times does just that and uncovers that budget cuts have increased class sizes, reduced services and supplies and thinned the ranks of teachers.

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Morning Announcements: March 28, 2012

Wednesday is here and as usual we provide you with a mid-week boost with some riveting educational news. Enjoy!

American University Radio sheds light on the impact dropping out of high school causes for many youth as they struggle economically. The Alliance has already offered data on the disparities between high school graduates and dropout in terms of lifetime income and salaries. American University introduces to you to students who are attempting to get the lives back on track through dropout recovery schools.

American University Radio also delves into the connection, and sometimes disconnect, between school and home. Reporters travel with a truancy counselor in the Washington D.C metropolitan area as he reaches out to parents and their children at the homes to instill the importance for attending school.

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Morning Announcements: March 21, 2012

It’s the middle of the week. You’re almost there. Keep yourself motivated with the latest in education news.

Republican Congressman John Kline of Minnesota, who serves as the chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, wants to see Congress put more money into state grants for special education. Education Week reports that the sent a letter to the leading lawmakers on the House panel that oversees K-12 spending

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Afternoon Announcements: November 17, 2011

Today's announcements are brought to you by Alliance Policy Intern Bill DeBaun:

Wednesday afternoon is here, and so are your afternoon announcements! As the days shorten and the weather gets colder, isn’t it encouraging to know that you can warm up with a little education news?

Education Daily discusses a study from Civic Enterprises that praises early-warning systems. The article notes that Dr. Robert Balfanz of Johns Hopkins University’s Everyone Graduates Center said at a recent Alliance for Excellent Education event, “In essence, these systems come down to a seemingly simple action: making a list of the students who are predicted to need support, and acting on the list.” In 2010, the Alliance had a part in establishing the Grad Nation campaign to address America’s dropout crisis. The Civic Enterprises report notes that the Grad Nation Civic Marshall Plan was an early adopter of early-warning systems.

Bill Tucker of Education Sector’s "The Quick and the Ed" blog brings us this handy post about recent digital learning reports. After checking out some of these reports, be sure to stop by the Digital Learning Day website to find out even more about this cutting-edge and very important topic!

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Morning Announcements: November 1, 2011

Grab a few pieces of leftover Halloween candy and settle in for the latest education news.

According to U.S. News & World Report, the latest test scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) released this morning show that American fourth and eighth graders took a small step forward in math achievement but stayed relatively stagnant in reading scores between 2009 and 2011.

Riverside, California’s Press-Enterprise reports on the continued battle to increase graduation and college-going rates saying, “A generation ago, a high school degree was enough to land a decent-paying job at the local steel mill or aerospace plant and gain entry to the middle class. In the years since, the job market has evolved into one that requires more brain power and less muscle. In the San Bernardino-Riverside-Ontario area, dropouts in 2010 totaled some 27,700 students, who, as underemployed workers, cost the region billions of dollars in lost purchases, investments and state and local tax revenues, according to the Alliance for Excellent Education.” The P-E’s staff artist put together this nifty graphic using Alliance data to show the economic benefits of improving high school graduation rates.

According to the Albuquerque Journal, educators on Monday cautioned Gov. Susana Martinez’s administration against rushing the implementation of a new law requiring the state to assign grades to rate the performance of public schools. Teachers, superintendents and others raised questions about the grading system at a hearing by the Public Education Department on proposed rules for evaluating schools.

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Morning Announcements: August 3, 2011

The Washington Post reports that the domestic spending cuts contemplated in the debt-ceiling deal are sure to compound the dire fiscal situation confronting the states, which already are reducing jobs and slashing once-untouchable programs to balance their budgets.

The Christian Science Monitor features an article along the same lines, saying that federal spending cuts mean fewer dollars will flow to the states for unemployment benefits, education, health care, and other state-run programs.

The California Dream Act offers a young illegal immigrant a morale boost, writes the Los Angeles Times.

Kentucky reports a 76 percent high school graduation rate, according to the Bowling Green Daily News.

According to the Denver Post, major education groups in Colorado back proposed state tax hike for K–12 education.

Connecticut education officials are considering seeking a waiver to requirements of the No Child Left Behind law, reports the Connecticut Mirror.

 

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Morning Announcements: July 29, 2011

Education Week reports that during an interview on Wednesday with U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), he declined to be more specific about exactly when the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee would get around to marking up the very, very long-overdue Elementary and Secondary Education Act bill (renewal has been pending since 2007, back when President George W. Bush was in office).

While developing his positions on education policy, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), also a member of the Senate HELP Committee, told the Huffington Post that education reform is the “most important thing I’m working on.”

According to another article in the Huffington Post, Microsoft founder Bill Gates told the National Urban League on Thursday that education reformers must “end the myth” that poverty needs to be eradicated before reforming education.

Accurate dropout figures are very hard to find because most states do not adequately collect or analyze the data, and part of the problem is that every state has had a different definition for dropout, says NPR.

CNN writes about one good teacher’s decision to quit after a successful thirteen-year teaching career.

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Afternoon Announcements: July 28, 2011

News outlets all over the nation are talking about states bracing for plummeting high school graduation rates as districts nationwide dump flawed measurement formulas that often undercounted dropouts and produced inflated results. According to CBS News, “experts hope the changes will draw attention to the dropout issue and lead to resources being focused on the problem. … 'We’re going to take an honest look in the mirror and see how real our graduation rate is and where we need to cut the dropout rate,' said former West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education, which has extensively studied the nation’s hodgepodge system of graduation rates. 'You’ve got to know how deep the hole is in order to develop a strategy for getting out of it.'”

NPR finishes out its five-part series “School’s Out: America’s Dropout Crisis” with this story:

Part 5: A High School Dropout’s Midlife Hardships
Today, the people who seem to be hurting the most in our sputtering economy are dropouts in their 30s, 40s and 50s.

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