Morning Announcements: June 23, 2011

Even though Hispanic students' NAEP scores have risen, they continue to trail their white, non-Hispanic counterparts by up to two grade levels on average, according to a National Center for Education Statistics report released today.

Education Week describes how students at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia are also the employees in a school-based production company that provides video services.

The New Jersey Examiner explains why minority students do not learn enough in college. 

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Morning Announcements: June 22, 2011

After months of feuding and failed negotiations, lawmakers and governors in several states remain deadlocked on how to close budget shortfalls and pay for education and other services, according to Education Week.

According to the New York Times, of the 70 New York City high schools that earned an "A" under the education department's school assessment system and have at least one-third of graduates attending a City University of New York college, 46 posted remediation rates above 50%.

In his blog “School of Thought” Andy Rotherman asks, “Is it finally the beginning of the end for No Child Left Behind?”

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Morning Announcements: June 20, 2011

States seeking relief from the requirements of the 9-year-old No Child Left Behind Act are taking a wait-and-see approach to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s plan to offer those that embrace his reform priorities wiggle room when it comes to the law’s mandates, Education Week reports.

In the Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson writes about the great jobs mismatch:

One puzzle of this somber economy is the existence of unfilled jobs in the midst of mass unemployment. You might think (I did) that with almost 14 million Americans unemployed — and nearly half those for more than six months — that companies could fill almost any opening quickly. Not so. Somehow, there’s a mismatch between idle workers and open jobs. Economists call this “structural unemployment.”

Just how many jobs are affected is unclear; there are no definitive statistics. Economist Harry Holzer of Georgetown University thinks the unemployment rate might be closer to 8 percent than today’s 9.1 percent if most of these jobs were filled. That implies up to 1.5 million more jobs. Economist Prakash Loungani of the International Monetary Fund estimates that 25 percent of unemployment is structural; that’s more than 3 million jobs. A recent survey of 2,000 firms by the McKinsey Global Institute, a research group, found that 40 percent had positions open at least six months because they couldn’t find suitable candidates.

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Morning Announcements: June 16, 2011

Fox12 in Idaho reports on former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Alliance President Bob Wise coming together to help promote and guide the future of online learning in the state. (Watch video below.)

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Morning Announcements: June 15, 2011

Thousands of educators, parent activists, and others are expected to convene in the heat and humidity of Washington next month for a march protesting the current thrust of education policy in the United States, especially the strong emphasis on test-based accountability, Education Week reports. Also from Education Week - The U.S. Department of Education on Tuesday warned school districts across the country against taking steps to ban students from forming gay-straight alliances and similar support groups in their schools.

The Chicago Tribune reports that Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed ambitious education reforms into law Monday that will change how Illinois educators earn tenure and how districts remove ineffective teachers from the classroom, with seniority for the first time mattering less than performance.

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Morning Announcements: June 14, 2011

The Chicago Tribune writes about Simpson Academy for Young Women in Chicago and their decision to allow its pregnant students to stay until graduation and take advantage of the constant motivation and camaraderie from peers and staff. Sana Bell, a recent graduate of Simpson Academy explains why graduating was important to her:  "I don't want to be on welfare my whole life. I want to have a salary and my own health insurance. I want to own a car and I want to have my own everything. Graduating from high school and going to college is going to help me give my son a better life.”

In Idaho today, state schools chief Tom Luna kicked off the  first meeting of a new task force that will help determine how to implement new school technology investments, the Spokesman-Review reports. Governors Jeb Bush and Bob Wise were in attendance to discuss the value of digital learning.

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Morning Announcements: June 9, 2011

Yesterday, President Obama visited Northern  Virginia Community College to discuss a $2 billion program aimed at tailoring classes to match the needs of manufacturing companies, according to the New York Times. The effort, supported by the National Association of Manufacturers, aims to train half a million community college students for manufacturing jobs over the next five years, to help offset the retirement of 2.7 million older workers over the next decade or so.

At Henry Ford Early College in Dearborn, Mich., students get a diploma, a degree, and a leg up on a job in the local health industry, Education Week reports.

In his School of Thought blog on TIME Magazine’s site, Andrew Rotherham asks Are These End Times for Charter Schools?

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Morning Announcements: June 1, 2011

States are thinking twice about the new race to the top cash, according to Education Week. “The $200 million pot has drawn controversy in part because four of the states have new governors who had nothing to do with their states’ original Race to the Top proposals: California, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina…The grants are a sliver of what they were in the first two rounds, when awards started at $75 million for the smallest winners, such as Hawaii, Rhode Island, and the District of Columbia, and ranged up to $700 million for the largest, Florida and New York. For this third round, California, the largest state, stands to gain only up to $50 million. Smaller states such as Colorado could get closer to $10 million."

eSchoolNews covers a recently releases policy brief from the Alliance for Excellent Education: “A Time for Deeper Learning” argues that the United States has a two-tier system of education, where affluent students have more of an opportunity to achieve deeper learning, whereas low-income students learn only basic skills and knowledge. Results from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) highlight the fact that American students lag behind their international peers in using their knowledge to solve reading, math, and science problems.”

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Morning Announcements: May 31, 2011

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that over a third of students entering college need remedial help and quotes Alliance President Bob Wise as saying, “It’s like a track meet where you have [students] run another lap to get to the start line instead of moving toward the finish line.” On a related note, in an op-ed in the Washington Post, Kristen Amundson of Education Sector, writes about remediation problems in Virginia and calls for state legislators to phase out the Virginia Standard Diploma.

The Great Falls Tribune editorial board explains why graduating high school IS a big deal.

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Morning Announcements: May 20, 2011

In his School of Thought blog in TIME magazine, Andrew Rotherham explains, “Actually, College is Very Much Worth It.”

Education Week blogger Erik Robelen writes about a coalition of school chiefs and their ideas for what a reauthorized ESEA should look like.

The Independent asks “What’s in a graduation rate?”

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