268. Review of College News

Here are some links to today's stories

about college access and success.

by

Joe Rottenborn

Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

1. The key to a good education: parents (not teachers), by Patrick Welsh - http://t.co/6QK7uBA via @USATODAY - "Reduced to its simplest terms, the rationale behind the attack on teachers is this: Children born to single, semi-literate, poverty-stricken 16- or 17-year-olds can, with the right teachers, reach the same level of academic skill as children born to parents such as Ben's and Emma's. Teachers would love to have such power, but statistics and common sense show that with few exceptions, things don't work that way."

2. College Board Finds Minority Men Continue to Lag Academically, by Lily Altavena - http://nyti.ms/ixBLbB - "According to the reports, 16 percent of Latino and 28 percent of African-American men ages 25 to 34 had obtained an associate’s degree or higher as of 2008, while the comparable figure for white men was 44 percent and for Asian men, 70 percent."

3. ACT's Validity Questioned, by Scott Jaschik - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/mxJGct - "A new study has found that two of the four main parts of the ACT -- science and reading -- have "little or no" ability to help colleges predict whether applicants will succeed.The analysis also found that the other two parts -- English and mathematics -- are "highly predictive" of college success. But because most colleges rely on the composite ACT score, rather than individual subject scores, the value of the entire exam is questioned by the study."

4. Who Isn’t Going to College, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://t.co/dlXCjHE via @cbsmoneywatch - "Nearly half of young male high school graduates, who are minorities, are either unemployed, imprisoned or dead by the time they are 24."

5. Rick Hess Straight Up: Straight Up Conversation: KIPP CEO Richard Barth on the College Completion Challenge - http://t.co/QFokY93 - "One risk is we've learned "to college" is not "through college." The whole country is focusing on high school graduation rates and getting kids to college. We're shedding light on the fact that the difference between "to college" and "through college" is massive."

6. Plan Aims to Revitalize Detroit Schools - http://nyti.ms/mTWLy5 - "Education Secretary Arne Duncan has said that Detroit’s schools are “the bottom of the barrel” and that something must be done to save its children."

7. A Single Mother Celebrates Her Graduation, by Lauren Sieben - http://chronicle.com/blogs/saysomething/2011/06/20/episode-17-a-single-mother-celebrates-her-graduation/ - "In this episode, we hear from Allie Barnard, a single mother who graduated this spring from Endicott College with her 3-year-old daughter, Avarie, by her side."

8. The Educational Crisis of Young Men of Color, by Gaston Caperton and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gaston-caperton/the-educational-crisis-of_b_877716.html?ir=College - "There is an education crisis facing young men of color. It's not on the front page of the newspaper. People aren't organizing on Facebook or Twitter. But it's out there, and if we fail to address this crisis together, the education level of the entire American workforce will decline for the first time in our history."