347. College Access and Success News

Here are links to recent news on college access and success.

by

Joe Rottenborn

Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

1. Who Needs to Know? by Steve Kolowich - Inside Higher Ed - http://bit.ly/ofP0PY via AddThis - "The small, private college in upstate New York recently teamed up with Starfish Retention Solutions to institute an electronic “flagging” system that allows a student’s instructors, adviser and other officials to keep each other apprised if the student begins to fall behind on grades, attendance, health or financial aid forms, or any other obligations the student needs to fulfill to stay enrolled."

2. Higher Education Associations to Convene Commission on Attainment - http://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Press_Releases2&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=42893 - "While the precise work of the commission will be defined by the participants, the topics to be explored will include: The changing nature of students seeking a degree or credential; The ability of higher education to attract, retain and graduate the increasing number of adults seeking a degree or credential; The current capacity of higher education to accommodate the large number of students who will need to enroll if we are to increase the number of graduates; and The opportunities to increase efficiency and enhance productivity in meaningful ways."

3. The White Man's Trick Bag, by Roy L. Beasley - Inside Higher Ed - http://bit.ly/qyQvOv via AddThis - "The problem deniers are still out there, still encouraging us to send our children buck naked into the world's jungles like so many black Harry Potters protected only by maternal fantasies that they can be anything they want to be. No, they can't. It still takes a hell of a lot more guts and talent and other resources for a black man or a black woman to achieve the same level of success as for a white man or a white woman."

4. Do You Know What Your EFC Is? by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://moneywatch.bnet.com/spending/blog/college-solution/do-you-know-what-your-efc-is/6916/ via @cbsmoneywatch - "You can find your preliminary EFC by heading to the College Board’s website. In the upper right-hand corner just type EFC calculator into the search box. You’ll need your latest income tax return and non-retirement account statements to use the calculator. It should take just a few minutes to obtain your EFC."

5. 3 Reasons Why Law Schools Are Under Fire, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://moneywatch.bnet.com/spending/blog/college-solution/3-reasons-why-law-schools-are-under-fire/6935/ via @cbsmoneywatch - "The scholarship programs at law schools across the country often look more like bait-and-switch operations. Eighty percent of law schools offer merit scholarships, but many of these scholarships disappear after the recipients finish their first year of law school. Schools are accused of rigging the scholarships so most students can’t keep them. Here’s a New York Times‘ expose from earlier this year that explains how this works: Law Students Lose the Grant Game as Schools Win."

6. Student progress can be tied to teacher's school, by Donna Gordon Blankinship - http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WA_TEACHER_TRAINING_WAOL-?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT - "The academic progress of public school students can be traced, in part, to where their teachers went to college, according to new research by the University of Washington Center for Education Data & Research."

7. 'Capturing Kids' Hearts' Initiative Focuses on Relationship Building, by Ian Quillen - http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2011/10/19/01conversionside-relationships.h05.html via @educationweek"Imagine a misbehaving student and a stressed-out teacher during the final period of the day. But imagine that THE teacher, instead of giving in to anger, poses—in a gentle tone—four questions for the student to answer. What are you doing? What are you supposed to be doing? Are you doing it? What are you going to do about it?"

8. Building the Digital District, by Ian Quillen - http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2011/10/19/01conversion.h05.html via @educationweek - "Since the digital conversion began, the district has seen an improvement of 20 percentage points—from 68 percent to 88 percent—in the portion of its students who scored “proficient” on all core-subject state exams, in the subjects of reading, math, and science. Six of eight schools achieved Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP, up from two of seven schools during the conversion’s first year. And its 2010-11 graduation rate rose to 91 percent, up 14 percentage points from four years ago."

9. Vocational Training Can Prompt Unemployment Later in Life, Study Finds - http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/vocational-training-can-prompt-unemployment-later-in-life-study-finds/37294 - "Pursuit of a vocational education may help students in the short term, getting them a job when they might otherwise be unemployed, but by the time they reach the age of 50, they are more likely to be unemployed than are students who had pursued a general education, according to a working paper published on Monday by the National Bureau of Economic Research."

10. Learning-disabled students get firmer grip on college, by Mary Beth Marklein – http://usat.ly/nAnonG via @USATODAY - "Nearly nine out of 10 of the nation's two- and four-year colleges enroll students with disabilities, and of the 86% of those that enroll students with learning disabilities, only 24% say they can help disabled students "to a major extent," says an Education Department report published in June. That's why a growing number of short-term opportunities are cropping up to help college students with learning disabilities hone the skills they will need on a mainstream campus."

11. What “no excuses” model really teaches us about reform, by Matthew Di Carlo - The Answer Sheet - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/what-no-excuses-model-really-teaches-us-about-reform/2011/10/17/gIQAuiirsL_blog.html?tid=sm_btn_twitter via @washingtonpost - "In the Houston implementation, “no excuses” consists of five basic policies: a longer day and year, resulting in 21 percent more school time; different human capital policies, including performance bonuses and firing and selectively rehiring all principals and half of teachers (the latter is one of the “turnaround models” being pushed by the Obama administration); extensive 2-on-1 tutoring; regular assessments and data analysis; and “high expectations” for behavior and achievement, including parental contracts."

12. "CREATING NO EXCUSES" (TRADITIONAL) PUBLIC SCHOOLS:PRELIMINARY EVIDENCE FROM AN EXPERIMENT IN HOUSTON, byRoland G. Fryer, Jr -http://www.houstonisd.org/HISDConnectEnglish/Images/Apollo/apollo20whitepaper.pdf -"The racial achievement gap in education is an important social problem to which decades of research have yielded no scalable solutions. Recent evidence from "No Excuses" charter schools – which demonstrates that some combination of school inputs can educate the poorest minority children – offers a guiding light. In the 2010-2011 school year, we implemented five strategies gleaned from best practices in"No Excuses" charter schools – increased instructional time, a more rigorous approach to building human capital, more student-level differentiation, frequent use of data to inform instruction, and a culture of high expectations – in nine of the lowest performing middle and high schools in Houston, Texas. We show that the average impact of these changes on student achievement is 0.276 standard deviations in math and 0.059 standard deviations in reading, which is strikingly similar to reportedimpacts of attending the Harlem Children’s Zone and Knowledge is Power Program schools – two strict “No Excuses” adherents. The paper concludes with a speculative discussion of the scalability of the experiment."

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