Afternoon Announcements: July 16, 2012

Monday is the undisputed* best day of the week. To celebrate that fact, High School Soup is giving you an extra large heaping helping of Afternoon Announcements today to feast on. You might even have leftover announcements to take home and have for dinner. That’s great education news value!

The Associated Press leads us off with an article on a new report that shows a growing divide between low-income Kentuckians and their moderate- and high-income peers in terms of graduation rates. The report from the Council on Postsecondary Education says that from 2008 to 2010, low-income students saw their college graduation rates fall from 46 percent to 35 percent. In the same period, moderate- and high-income students dropped only four percent from 57 to 53 percent.

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Stats That Stick: June 13, 2012

Time for those Stats That Stick! Here are a few of the statistics we’ve seen in the past week that deserve your attention!

High school graduation rate of the class of 2009: 73 percent.

U.S. News and World Report examines Education Week’s  “Diplomas Count2012,” which was released last week. This edition of the annual report focuses on the achievement of Latino students. From 2008 to 2009, Latino graduation rates increased by 5.5 percent, which helped to spur a 1.7 percent increase in the overall national graduation rate.

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Morning Announcements: March 19, 2012

Happy Monday! We already know that’s oxymoronic but let’s pretend nonetheless. Ok? Here are your top stories in the education world today.

The Associated Press highlights a report from us here at the Alliance for Excellent Education in conjunction with Civic Enterprises, the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University, and America's Promise which shows the U.S. graduation rate is showing moderate improvements. The U.S. saw a 3.5 percent increase in graduation rate with New York and Tennessee boasting double digit improvements. Read Entire Post

Afternoon Announcements: January 26, 2012

Don't fret. It is Thursday and the incentive to Thursday is... it's almost Friday. But since we're not quite there take a break from the huslte and bustle and get up-to-date in the world of education and educational reform.

The Alliance for Excellent Education is highlighted in the New York Times as they pinpoint President Obama’s call during the State of the Union address for every state to require students to stay in school until they turn 18. This would be the federal government’s first direct involvement in an issue that many state and local governments have been reluctant to address. Alliance President Bob Wise in the article mentions that the policy is a tough sell but would ultimately benefit the economies of all states that comply.

In other news, underperforming schools are the topic of the day and around the country proposed measures to address these institutions are creating a lot of controversy. In Washington D.C, a new study commissioned by Mayor Vincent C. Gray recommends that the city increase the number of high-performing charter schools. But according to the Washington Post, this would result in the turn around or closure of more than three dozen traditional public schools in D.C.’s poorest neighborhoods.

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Afternoon Announcements: November 21, 2011

Starting in 2014, the General Education Development (GED) test will make changes with the goal of encouraging adults to continue studying for an associate's or bachelor's degree, reports U.S. News & World Report, which states that the test's five subject areas—writing, social studies, science, reading, and math—will be revised to more closely reflect the set of English and math common core state standards and topics that students are expected to learn. According to the article, New York Times columnist and author Thomas Friedman is quoted in the article saying, "If you do not have a high school degree that allows you to get through college without significant remediation, there is literally nothing for you." The article also cites this finding from an Alliance report: If half of the Class of 2010's 1.3 million high school dropouts had graduated, America would have gained nearly $7.3 billion in annual potential earnings.

While more students from all backgrounds are finishing college, the difference in graduation rates between the top and bottom income groups has widened by nearly 50 percent over two decades, reports CNN.

The Washington Post writes that failure of the congressional supercommittee tasked with reducing the federal deficit by at least $1.2 trillion could lead to across-the-board budget cuts, which would have a serious impact on already-distressed public education funding.

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Morning Announcements: November 4, 2011

It's Friday again! This weekend marks the end of Daylight Savings Time for most of the country. Remember to turn your clocks back an hour on Saturday night, which will give you an extra hour to catch up on education news!

The Indiana State University newsroom reports that of the 2010 high school graduating class in Indiana, 12 percent, or more than 10,000 students, left high school without a diploma. ISU and community groups from across the state continue to combat those statistics one child and one school at a time.

With concentrated poverty on the rise, the Hechinger Report wonders if education reformers should be worried, referencing a Brookings Institution report out yesterday: “After declining in the 1990s, the population in extreme-poverty neighborhoods—where at least 40 percent of individuals live below the poverty line—rose by one-third from 2000 to 2005–09.”

The Fiscal Times covers a Center for Budget and Policy Priorities report that shows nearly all the top ten toss-up states in next year’s presidential election have sharply curtailed their education budgets since the recession began in 2008.

Tennessee’s Commissioner of Education Kevin Huffman will ask the state Board of Education today to modify the new teacher evaluations, hoping to relieve time-pressured principals of some requirements and better ensure assessments are fair, reports the Tennessean.

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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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Stats That Stick: October 26, 2011

Here are this week's Stats That Stick courtesy of our policy intern, Bill DeBaun:

Percentage of children under 8 with access to a mobile device like a smartphone, a video iPod, or an iPad or other tablet: 50%
This according to a study by Common Sense Media reported on by the New York Times. The study examines “screen time” in children since birth. While this does show the increasing prevalence of technology in our lives, the American Academy of Pediatrics warns that “screen time offers no benefits for children under 2.”

Number of students who enter high school in New York City and are ready for college after four years: 1 in 4
This statistic, again from the New York Times, shows that graduation rates, which were more than double college readiness rates in 299 of 363 schools studied, can sometimes be misleading when deciding whether a student is college and career readiness. Here’s a bonus statistic: Of the 25% of students ready for college after four years, less than half actually enroll in college.

Estimated number of education sector jobs lost since 2008: 294,000
The Associated Press (via the Huffington Post) brings us this sobering reminder of the toll the economy has had on education. Many districts have already implemented cost-saving strategies like requiring students to pay to participate in extracurricular activities, including athletics, but these solutions may not be enough in the face of budget shortfalls and cuts.

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Alliance Responds to Draft Legislation to Revise No Child Left Behind

On October 11, U.S. Senators Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Mike Enzi (R-WY), the chairman and top Republican, respectively, of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (HELP) Committee, released draft legislation to revise the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, currently known as No Child Left Behind.

"Patience is no virtue in education reform, and the nation's students have waited long enough for more effective education policy coming from Washington," said Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia, in response to the draft legislation. "With this bill, they are one step closer to getting it."

Wise said the draft legislation is "especially important" for the nation's high schools, which he said had been "overlooked" by federal education policy for far too long. Specifically, Wise noted the legislation would concentrate improvement efforts on high schools with graduation rates below 60 percent, establish a common, accurate calculation of graduation rates, and support comprehensive efforts by states to strengthen the literacy skills of all students, including young people in high school. Read Entire Post

Report Round-Up: October 7, 2011

Here is a round-up of this week's education-related reports! Read Entire Post