358. 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. Read The Joe Rottenborn Daily ▸ today's top stories on college access and success via @rottenbornj ▸ http://paper.li/rottenbornj

2. Advice on Whittling Your Admissions Essay, by Alan Gelb: http://nyti.ms/rORahK - "Most first drafts I see are several hundred words beyond that mark. That is to be expected, but by the second and third drafts, they are very close to the 500 word count. I almost never encounter essays that justify exceeding that limit. The extra verbiage usually reflects problematic writing choices, so I would like to offer a few tips on how to keep your essay concise with no sacrifice of meaning or impact:"

3. Home States of College Freshmen: Why They Matter, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://moneywatch.bnet.com/spending/blog/college-solution/home-states-of-college-freshmen-why-they-matter/7074/ via @cbsmoneywatch - "Fifty two percent of students attend colleges within 100 miles of them home, according to a UCLA study. Actually most students never leave their own state. New government statistics illustrate just how popular the home state is with many college students."

4. Curriculum Matters: Study: Pre-K Crucial to Best 3rd Grade Reading Outcomes, by Catherine Gewertz - http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2011/11/in_the_face_of_state.html via @educationweek - "They found consistently that children who attended preschool and half-day kindergarten had substantially greater chances of doing better on the reading test than those who had attended only full-day kindergarten. The benefits were particularly strong for Hispanic and low-income students and those learning English."

5. Excellence Without Equity Is Neither, by Eric Witherspoon - http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/11/02/10witherspoon.h31.html via @educationweek - "For every student to succeed, everyone must believe that success for all is possible and that failure is not an option for any student. This belief is fundamental and must be shared by every student and adult in a school. Expectations correlate directly with results."

6. Experts: Half of foster kids quit high school - US news - http://www.mail.com/news/us/808440-experts-half-foster-kids-quit-high-school.html via @maildotcom - "Sommer, 19, is among the roughly 50 percent of the nation's 500,000 foster kids who won't graduate from high school, experts say. Nearly 94 percent of those that do make it through high school do not finish college, according to a 2010 study from Chapin Hall, the University of Chicago's research arm."

7. NAEP scores rise, but income gap sees little change, by Nick Pandolfo - http://hechingered.org/content/naep-scores-rise-but-income-gap-sees-little-change_4485/ - "Fourth- and eighth-graders’ scores showed modest improvement and racial achievement gaps narrowed on the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), commonly known as the “Nation’s Report Card,” which was released Tuesday. The gap between disadvantaged students and their more affluent peers remained largely unchanged, however, and widened in fourth-grade reading."

8. Since 1990s, U.S. Students’ Math Has Sharpened, but Reading Lags, by Sam Dillon - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/02/education/us-students-math-skills-sharpen-but-reading-lags.html?_r=1&hpw - "Mr. Driscoll and other officials and experts put forward several hypotheses to explain the trends. Children learn most of their math in school, and even though math instruction in the United States in general lags behind that in some high-performing countries, the experts said, it has improved over the past two decades. Reading achievement, in contrast, reflects not only the quality of reading instruction in school classrooms, they said, but also factors like whether parents read to children and how much time students read on their own outside school. And many children in the United States are spending less time reading on their own."

9. Putting Zuckerberg’s Millions to Work for Schools, by Jodi Rudoren - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/02/giving/putting-zuckerbergs-gift-of-millions-to-work-for-newark-schools.html?src=recg - "In a school district of 40,000 students, 62 percent receive free or reduced-price lunches. Nearly half of those who enter high school do not finish. Among those who go on to college, 98 percent need remediation."

10. U.S. students make gains in math but stall in reading, by Lyndsey Layton - http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/us-students-make-gains-in-math-but-stall-in-reading/2011/10/31/gIQATYdYcM_story.html?tid=sm_btn_twitter via Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive - "The tests, often referred to as the nation’s report card, also showed minimal progress in narrowing the achievement gap between white students and their black and Latino counterparts, despite nearly 10 years of federal law designed to close that margin."