390. 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. Charter schools: Wave of the future? by Steve Kastenbaum – Schools of Thought - http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/15/charter-schools-wave-of-the-future/ via CNN - "The Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University studied charter school performance in 16 states. Researchers concluded that 17% of charter schools reported academic gains that were significantly better than traditional public schools. But 37% of charter schools performed at rates below their public school counterparts. The remaining 46% showed no significant difference. The Rand Corp., a nonprofit research foundation, looked at charter schools in eight states and found that, on average, charter schools as a whole aren't producing results that differ substantially from traditional public school systems. However, the study showed that students at charter high schools are between 7% and 15% more likely to graduate than their traditional public school counterparts."

3. eCheating: Students using high-tech tricks, by Greg Toppo – http://usat.ly/urySpd via @USATODAY - "Common Sense Media, a non-profit advocacy group, finds that more than 35% of teens ages 13 to 17 with cellphones have used the devices to cheat. More than half (52%) admit to some form of cheating involving the Internet, and many don't consider it a big deal. For instance, only 41% say storing notes on a cellphone to access during a test is a "serious offense." Nearly one in four (23%) don't think it's cheating at all."

4. You've Got Application Questions? We'll Have Answers, on Facebook, by Jacques Steinberg and Rebecca R. Ruiz: http://nyti.ms/vL2LEv - "We invite applicants who might be finishing their applications — or seeking to make sense of their early application news — to log on and draw on the expertise of these three counselors."

5. Budget compromise would preserve maximum Pell grant, NIH funding, by Libby A. Nelson Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/tsdSWi via AddThis - "The bill, HR 3671, draws from ideas put forward in Republican and Democratic spending plans earlier this year: it would preserve the maximum Pell Grant at $5,550, but change the program’s eligibility criteria, making as many as 100,000 of its 9 million recipients ineligible. The grants could be used for a total of 12 semesters, not 18, as in the past -- a change that would affect an estimated 62,000 beneficiaries and take effect July 1, 2012."

6. 9 States Win Race to Top Early Learning Grants, by Michele McNeil - http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2011/12/states_win_race_to_top_early_l.html via @educationweek - "Nine states will share $500 million in Race to the Top early learning grants, the U.S. Department of Education confirmed this morning. They are: California, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Washington. They will get grants ranging from $50 million to $100 million, based on the state's student population. "Investing in early learning is one of the smartest things we can do," U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said during the White House announcement of the winners this morning."

7. Ohio's Race to the Top: Early Learning Challenge Grant Application for Initial Funding - http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop-earlylearningchallenge/applications/ohio.pdf -"Nearly 75% of high-needs children in Ohio enter school without the skills they need to succeed in kindergarten."

8. Outsourced city school tutoring program deeply flawed, report says, by Fern Shen Baltimore Brew http://bit.ly/oJZNNL - “This is a classic case of outsourcing a vital education program to private contractors without adequate public monitoring and regulation,” Jacobson told The Brew today. “Therefore, no one knows if tutored students are making academic improvement, even though the federal law states improving academic achievement as the program’s purpose.”

9. What research exposed about market-based ed reform in 2011, by Matthew Di Carlo - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/what-research-exposed-about-market-based-ed-reform-in-2011/2011/12/14/gIQAOJ3zwO_blog.html?tid=sm_btn_tw - "There were also several studies taking a look at the effects of the so-called “no excuses” model (most famously used by KIPP), which is generally characterized by an extended day/year, intensive tutoring, stepped-up recruitment and performance pay of teachers and administrators, strict discipline and data-informed instruction via interim assessments. Perhaps most notably, we received the first round of results on a pilot program in Houston, in which 20 regular public schools are being “converted” to the “no excuses” model. The preliminary results for the Houston intervention’s first year were, however, mixed. There were no discernible gains in reading, to go along with strong increases in math achievement, which seemed to be in no small part driven by the schools’ tutoring program (further discussion here)."

10. The 10 lowest college graduation rates in D.C., Md. and Va., by Daniel de Vise - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/college-inc/post/the-10-lowest-college-graduation-rates-in-dc-md-and-va/2011/12/13/gIQAnfSVsO_blog.html?tid=sm_btn_tw - “Show me a city with a high-school dropout factory and I will show you a college in the same city with an even lower graduation rate,” said Kevin Carey, an Education Sector researcher who has studied graduation rates at length. “Apparently there’s no number so low that it automatically triggers loss of accreditation. There’s no number so low that it causes state leaders to consider shutting an institution down.”

11. College Dropout Factories by Ben Miller and Phuong Ly Washington Monthlyhttp://www.washingtonmonthly.com/college_guide/feature/college_dropout_factories.php?page=all - "But the term “dropout factory” is also applicable to colleges. The Washington Monthly and Education Sector, an independent think tank, looked at the 15 percent of colleges and universities with the worst graduation records—about 200 schools in all—and found that the graduation rate at these schools is 26 percent. (See the table at left for a listing of the fifty colleges and universities with the worst graduation rates.) America’s “college dropout factories,” in other words, are twice as bad at graduating their students as the worst high schools are at graduating theirs."