386. 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. Detailing the For-Profit Lobbying Campaign Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/uXHOV1 via AddThis - "For-profit colleges and associations spent more than $16 million on lobbying, with much of the money going to Democrats with ties to the White House."

3. Cal State campuses overwhelmed by remedial needs, by Matt Krupnick - San Jose Mercury News - http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_19526032 - "The remedial numbers are staggering, given that the Cal State system admits only freshmen who graduated in the top one-third of their high-school class. About 27,300 freshmen in the 2010 entering class of about 42,700 needed remedial work in math, English or both. . . . "It's a terrible indictment of the K-through-12 system," Postma said. "If a factory was building cars and the lug nuts kept falling off the tires, you would do something pretty dramatic about it. We keep adding the lug nuts back to the tires rather than trying to figure out what the problem is."The remedial problem is hardly confined to California. Schools across the country have puzzled over how to better prepare students for college and what to do with those who are not ready."

4. Guidance on Race-Based Factors Gets Polarized Response, by Mark Walsh - http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/12/09/14race.h31.html?cmp=SOC-SHR-TW via @educationweek - "The federal departments of Education and Justice jointly issued separate documents for K-12 schools and postsecondary institutions that outline both race-neutral and race-conscious practices that officials say may be used to advance racial diversity and avoid racial isolation."

5. The Unaddressed Link Between Poverty and Education, by Helen F. Ladd and Edward B. Fiske: http://nyti.ms/tNZk20 - "But let’s not pretend that family background does not matter and can be overlooked. Let’s agree that we know a lot about how to address the ways in which poverty undermines student learning. Whether we choose to face up to that reality is ultimately a moral question."

6. The Brutal Side of Hazing, by Charles M. Blow: http://nyti.ms/tGexyx - "His death refocuses attention on college hazing and illustrates just how pervasive and intractable the problem can be, how rooted it is into some organizations, how far some will go to belong and feel bonded and how some officials can seem to turn a blind eye — publicly disavowing and condemning while silently condoning."

7. At Forum on the Future, Leaders Dissect What Ails Higher Education Today, by Karin Fischerhttp://chronicle.com/article/At-Forum-on-the-Future/130087/ - "Henry S. Bienen, a former president of Northwestern University, concurred that fixing elementary and secondary education is a critical challenge for American colleges. Mr. Bienen, speaking on a panel Friday morning, said just 8 percent of the graduates of the Chicago public schools, on whose board he sits, are college ready. That's 8 percent, he noted, of an already-diminished population—only 57 percent of students who begin high school in the nation's third-largest city finish."

8. A superintendent calls school reformers’ bluff, by John Kuhn - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/a-superintendent-calls-school-reformers-bluff/2011/12/11/gIQABKBXoO_blog.html?tid=sm_btn_tw - "NCLB has done one important thing: By disaggregating data, it has forced teachers and administrators like me to agonize over the outcomes of our neediest students. But after 10 years, it is clear that NCLB’s reforms haven’t spurred miracles, and it is time that the profound problem of inequality is addressed. The deck is stacked against kids who live in poverty not just because their schools are on average worse than others, but also because of the circumstances of their lives when they leave campus. It’s time that we admit that it isn’t just teachers holding back poor and minority students back. The problems are societal."

9. Study: Two-fifths of high school graduates are unprepared, by Daniel de Vise - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/college-inc/post/study-two-fifths-of-high-school-graduates-are-unprepared/2011/12/12/gIQArZKnpO_blog.html?tid=sm_btn_tw - "One-third of high school students complete the modern college-preparatory track, and another one-quarter graduate from career-preparatory programs. The remaining high school population, an estimated 40 percent, do neither. They are “a virtual underclass of students,” the researchers write, who finish high school with a transcript filled with watered-down general education courses and few prospects for success either in traditional college or in professional training."

10. The Underserved Third: How Our Educational Structures Populate an Educational Underclass, by Regina Deil-Amen and Stefanie DeLuca - http://www.soc.jhu.edu/people/DeLuca/documents/D_%20D_%20JESPAR.pdf - "This leaves over 40% of students falling within the underserved third group—lacking adequate college preparation and occupational training. This third group is disproportionately composed of lower SES, underrepresented minority, immigrantEnglish language learner, and first-generation college students. Among students who earn a high school diploma, less than half are college-ready; more than half take at least one college remedial English or math class (Goldberger, 2007; Parsad & Lewis, 2003). As the underserved third group transitions into college, they populate the bulk of such remedial classes and are among the ‘‘two thirds or more of community college students’’ who ‘‘enter college with academic skills weak enough to threaten their ability to succeed in some of their college-level courses’’(Bailey, 2009, p. 1). These students are structurally positioned to transition out of school destined to fail to access labor market rewards."