HELP WANTED: New Report Finds Nearly Two Thirds of All Job Openings Will Require Postsecondary Education by 2018: About 63 percent of the 46.8 million job openings created by 2018 will require workers with at least some college education, according to a new report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Of these job openings, less than 36 percent will require workers to have just a high school diploma or less, finds the report, Help Wanted: Projections of Job and Education Requirements Through 2018.

THE GED: New Report Finds that GED Recipients Fare Little Better Economically Than High School Dropouts: A new report from the University of Chicago finds that a General Educational Development (GED) credential holds little value in helping students succeed in the job market or earn a postsecondary degree. The report, The GED, also notes that GED recipients are more equivalent to high school dropouts than they are to high school graduates in terms of their career outcomes, earnings, and their general performance in society.

JOBS WATCH: High Unemployment Rates Continue to Disproportionately Affect High School Dropouts: High school dropouts are more than three times as likely to be unemployed than college graduates based on the May 2010 numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released earlier this month. Overall, the unemployment rate inched down to 9.7 percent from 9.9 percent in April thanks in large part to the hiring of 411,000 temporary employees to work on the Census 2010.

A COMMON UNDERSTANDING: Final K–12 Standards in English Language Arts and Mathematics Released on June 2: On June 2, 2010 the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) released the final version of the Common Core State Standards in English language arts and mathematics at an event held at Peachtree Ridge High School in Suwanee, Georgia. The standards for grades K–12 were developed in collaboration with a variety of stakeholders including content experts, states, teachers, school administrators, and parents.

DIPLOMAS COUNT: New Report Finds High School Students Today Graduate at About the Same Rate as in the Early 1960s: Nearly 1.3 million students from the Class of 2010 will fail to graduate with their classmates, according to a new analysis from the Editorial Projects in Education (EPE) Research Center. The report, Diplomas Count 2010: Graduation By the Numbers—Putting Data to Work for Student Success, pegs the national graduation rate at 68.8 percent, which represents a slight drop (0.4 percent) from the 69.2 percent graduation rate reported last year.

ECONOMIC IMPERATIVE: Alliance Study Finds that Fewer Dropouts Means Higher Spending on Homes, Cars, and Investments: Lowering the high school dropout rate will greatly increase the economic vitality for some of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas, according to a dramatic new study that the Alliance for Excellent Education released on June 9. The results are the latest in the Alliance’s continuing work linking improved educational outcomes to economic returns. Combined with the study the Alliance released in January on the nation’s forty-five largest metro areas, the June 9 release brings the number of cities for which the Alliance has data to over eighty-five.

OPPORTUNITY AT THE TOP: New Report Finds that Concentrated Efforts to Retain and Expand the Reach of the Nation’s Top Teachers Could Vastly Improve Education: A new report from Public Impact, a national education policy and management consulting firm based in Chapel Hill, NC, finds that current reform efforts in the areas of teacher improvement are not enough to significantly improve the education for the majority of American children. The report, Opportunity at the Top: How America’s Best Teachers Could Close the Gaps, Raise the Bar, and Keep Our Nation Great, finds that one overlooked resource could raise the education bar, close achievement gaps, and improve the nation as a whole: the top 25 percent of U.S. teachers.