Report Round-Up: Friday, October 15, 2010

Finishing the First Lap: The Cost of First Year Student Attrition in America’s Four Year Colleges and Universities from the American Institutes for Research. Nationally, only about 60 percent of students graduate from four-year colleges and universities within six years. This analysis AIR vice president Mark Schneider finds that more than $9 billion was spent by state and federal governments to support students at four-year colleges and universities who left school before their sophomore year during a five-year period. 

White Paper: Next Generation Learning from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This white paper outlines how technology can help students and educators dramatically improve student outcomes, both in high schools and in postsecondary education.

Cutting to the Bone: How the Economic Crisis Affects Schools from the Center for Public Education.  According to this report, although the recession technically ended last year, budgets for LEAs nationwide will likely not reach pre-recession levels until late in the decade.

Fighting off School Bullying

In a recent conversation with a friend, she discussed some particulars about a mandatory training her employer instituted. The training was rather progressive and something I had never heard done in the professional space. It was a training to create a safe space for individuals transitioning to another gender.  Consultants, therapists, and trainers were brought in to teach, answer questions, and facilitate a healthy conversation. One of the most important factors is that the president of the organization was an active and fully engaged participant in the training. As matter of fact, it was her idea. Having the organization's figurehead participate in this training would make other employees view it more seriously.

That conversation made me think about the recent attention on bullying. A number of recent stories have emerged concerning  suicides of young students who were bullied based on sexual orientation, with the latest being the student at Rutgers University. According to a 2009 survey conducted by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) of more than seven thousand middle and high school students, nearly 9 out of 10 LGBT students experienced harassment at school in the past year and nearly two-thirds felt unsafe because of their sexual orientation. According to LGBT legal assistance organization Lambda Legal, almost one-third of LGBT students drop out of high school to escape the violence, harassment, and isolation they face there - a dropout rate much higher than the national average.