189. MVCAP fyi

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1. MLK lecture tackles achievement gap, by Shanoor Seervai - The Brown Daily Herald: http://t.co/I6n3CPk

"During a question and answer session after the lecture, Ferguson addressed the issue of education perpetuating social hierarchy. "People who already have privilege tend to award it," he said, and the students whose parents are not as well-off most need to be advocated for."

2. Q&A with Ronald Ferguson - The Brown Daily Herald: http://t.co/ifq4SaR

"The thesis of my book is that we need a 21st century movement built around helping students from all different backgrounds to realize their full potential. . . . it is time for a widespread social movement. Every day, I get two to three calls from people trying to organize around the issue of equality in education. There is a sense that the current configuration is not just."

3. School scraps race-specific mentoring program, by Monika Plocienniczak - http://bit.ly/e6ypIU #cnn

"When we talk about reducing the achievement gap, do we mean merely reducing the discrepancy of test scores of white students and students of color?" asked education consultant Sam Chaltain. "Or do we mean reducing the predictive impact that things like race, class and gender have on all aspects of student engagement, performance and learning?"

4. Minority Students and A.P. Program, a Mixed Report Card, by Maria Newman - http://nyti.ms/fwxEi5

‎"But the gap between how those students performed, compared to nonminority students, is still great in most states in the country. African-Americans, for example, represented just over 14.6 percent of the total high school graduating class last year, but made up less than 4 percent of the A.P. student population who earned a score of 3 or better on at least one exam."

5. Dream On, by David Moltz - Inside Higher Ed http://t.co/ZRh8n21

"Yet according to the report, most of the measures of student success for the overall populations at the institutions did not change in a statistically significant way after five years, less because programs used were unsuccessful -- many individual efforts have been publicly lauded as successful -- than because they touched too few students."

6. Turning the Tide: Five Years of Achieving the Dream in Community Colleges - http://www.mdrc.org/publications/578/overview.html

"Trends in student outcomes remained relatively unchanged, with a few exceptions. On average, after Achieving the Dream was introduced, colleges saw modest improvements in the percentage of students completing gatekeeper college English courses and courses completed. In contrast, students’ persistence and the percentage of students completing developmental math, developmental English, developmental reading, and gatekeeper math courses remained substantially the same."

7. Assessing Developmental Assessment in Community Colleges, CCRC - http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/Publication.asp?UID=856

"More than half of entering students at community colleges are placed into developmental education in at least one subject as a result. But the evidence on the predictive validity of these tests is not as strong as many might assume, given the stakes involved—and recent research fails to find evidence that the resulting placements into remediation improve student outcomes."

8. Community College Student Survey, Pearson Foundation - http://www.pearsonfoundation.org/downloads/Community_College_Survey_Summary_201102.pdf

"This summary of results highlights the major conclusions from a nationally represented online poll of 1,434 U.S. community college students ages 18–59. The Pearson Foundation Community College Student Survey was conductedby Harris Interactive between September 27 and November 4, 2010."

9. The Achievement Gap: Am I Part of the Problem? by Chris Myers Asch - http://t.co/p3Em0TV via @educationweek

‎"By kindergarten, the achievement gap is already in place, and parents like me are at least partly to blame. Parents, not teachers (no matter how effective), are the single most important educational influence in a child’s life. And that means that parents are also part of the reason for the achievement gap."

10. Number of AP Test Takers Has Nearly Doubled Since 2001, by Lauren Sieben - http://chronicle.com/article/Number-of-AP-Test-Takers-Has/126313/

"In 2010, 853,314 graduating seniors at public high schools had taken at least one AP exam. That's an increase of more than 55,000 students since 2009. The number of students who performed well on the exams—a score of 3 or better—is also up from 2009. In 2010, 16.9 percent of test takers met that mark on at least one AP exam, a slight increase from 16 percent in 2009."

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188. MVCAP fyi

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1. Fraternity official reacts to shooting - TribToday.com - Tribune Chronicle - Warren, OH: http://t.co/ACjh8AU

"This senseless act of violence has stunned the fraternity, the collegiate community and all who respect civility in our nation. The weight of this tragedy strengthens our resolve to uplift humanity at every station in life as we carry the hope and promise of our Brother, Jamail Johnson," Ray said."

2. Jamail Johnson, YSU Shooting Victim, Died Trying To Save Others - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/08/jamail-johnson-youngstown_n_820296.html

‎"As gunfire rang out and people ran for their lives, 25 year old Jamail Johnson ran toward the shooters. Johnson pushed them out of the fraternity house, potentially saving dozens more people from injury or death.Johnson continued on, even after being shot, eventually losing his life trying to protect others."

3. College Warns Accepted Applicants: Keep ‘Shoulder to Wheel’, by C. O. Gerszberg - http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/mom-u-02-08/#more-27735

"To be more specific, we expect you to continue the courses that you committed to take, to maintain achievement commensurate with your ability, and to sustain your extra-curricular commitments and leadership."

4. Left in the Hall, by David Moltz - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/hCVUNY

"Even the 22 percent of community college students who took placement tests had difficulties enrolling in the courses in which they placed. Nearly 30 percent of students who took English or mathematics placement tests were unable to enroll in all of their recommended courses last semester."

5. Classroom Matters, by Steve Kolowich - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/fAxDIg

“The majority of students who had Spanish in high school found it helpful,” says Glynis Cowell, director of the Spanish program there. However, she added, “For the true beginner it probably wasn’t as smooth a transition.” The university attracted a lot of attention a year and a half ago when it announced it was going to start teaching entry-level Spanish only on the Web."

6. Harkin Calls On For-Profit Colleges To End Deceptive Recruiting Practices - http://help.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/?id=068bd7c1-0311-447a-97b3-66eb01337012&groups=Chair

“Rather than offering students a better life, these types of strong-arm, emotionally abusive tactics are all too typical of schools that have little or no interest in providing students the academic help and support they need to succeed," Harkin said. "When these types of deceptive and exploitative tactics are used to enroll students, we should not be surprised to see high drop out and high default rates . . . .”

7. AdmissionSplash: Facebook Application Predicts Likelihood of Getting Into College - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/08/facebook-application-pred_n_820277.html

‎"AdmissionSplash asks students to submit a short or long personal profile including quantitative and qualitative characteristics, such as test scores, grades and extra-curricular activities, which colleges consider when making admissions decisions. The program then uses this information, along with public admissions statistics, to predict the student's chance of getting into any of the 1,500 colleges . . . ."

8. Perry to Push Texas Colleges to Offer $10,000 Degree, by Ross Ramsey - http://t.co/rHjvyd6 via @TexasTribune

"Gov. Rick Perry will challenge the state's colleges and universities to offer a $10,000 bachelor's degree, including books, in his State of the State speech later this morning, according to sources familiar with some of the proposals. Perry also wants lawmakers to consider outcome-based financial support for those schools . . . ."

9. 25 Private Colleges With the Best Graduation Rates, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://t.co/kXyrCi5

‎"The schools that enjoy that nation’s highest graduation rates are among the country’s most elite private universities and liberal arts colleges. The students who attend these schools are high achievers and the institutions are among the wealthiest, which permits them to offer an abundance of resources to their students."

10. Big, Big Money Problem: Finding Funds for Pell Grants, by Alyson Klein - http://t.co/kITZzHc

‎"There is a major, major shortfall in the Pell Grant program, which finances scholarships to help low-income students attend college. . . . That means that in order to keep grants at their current levels (the maximum is $5,550), Congress will have to find more than $5 billion in fiscal year 2011. Part of that money was included in the stop-gap measure that's currently funding the entire federal government . . . ."

11. 'Achieving the Dream' Produces Little Change at Community Colleges, by Jennifer Gonzalez - http://chronicle.com/article/Achieving-the-Dream-Produces/126304/

‎"Most of the original 26 colleges in the Achieving the Dream project have relied on data to drive strategies designed to increase student achievement—for example, the introduction of learning communities and courses in how to succeed in college. But those efforts have not resulted in more students' completing developmental courses, a necessity for the many underprepared students who hope to complete degree or certificates. . . ."

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115. MVCAP fyi

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1. Your Comments on High-Octane Parents, and their Blessedly Decaffeinated Children, by Jacques Steinberg - http://nyti.ms/9uzzqd

‎"I’ve been moderating your comments on Dave Marcus’s essay, “A Father’s Acceptance: His Son Won’t Follow His Ivy Footsteps,” and I’m having a bit of trouble keeping up. So many of you have been prompted to tell heartfelt stories of your own families, and the divergent, oft-rocky paths taken by parent and child. It’s obvious that Mr. Marcus touched a nerve, and that many of you saw yourselves in what he wrote about his relationship with his son, Benjie. (By the way, Benjie reviewed the essay in advance and gave it an enthusiastic thumbs up, his father says.)By contrast, some of you had a dissenting view from Mr. Marcus, which we’ll get to in a moment.I can’t possibly do justice to all your comments — you’ve posted more than 70, and counting, and the entire stream is probably worth savoring over a cup of coffee — but I’ll try to touch on a representative sampling."

2. Student Debt and the Class of 2009 http://projectonstudentdebt.org/files/pub/classof2009.pdf

"College seniors who graduated in 2009 had an average of $24,000 in student loan debt, up 6 percent from the previous year, according to data released Thursday by the Project on Student Debt. At the same time, unemployment for recent college graduates climbed from 5.8 percent in 2008 to 8.7 percent in 2009 – the highest annual rate on record for college graduates aged 20 to 24."

3. For-Profit Lobbying Escalates - Inside Higher Ed http://t.co/k3cOgYV

‎"As federal scrutiny of the sector has spread from the U.S. Department of Education's in-the-weeds negotiated rule-making process last winter to the high-profile series of hearings by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that began in June, for-profit higher education has responded by spending increasingly more on lobbying the Education Department, the White House and members of Congress. From the first quarter of the year (January-March) to the third (July-September), based on Inside Higher Ed's analysis of public disclosure data, for-profits' federal lobbying spending nearly doubled, from slightly more than $1.3 million to just short of $2.6 million."

4. Changing Course - Inside Higher Ed http://t.co/cRc7JE4

"Some nonprofit institutions that partner with companies on online education have been careful to emphasize their commitment to keeping a wall between the business and technology of online course delivery and the actual instruction. “Some things, we would never turn over to the private sector,” Philip Regier, dean of Arizona State University’s online programs, said earlier this month, after his institution announced it was going into business with Pearson to help boost its online offerings. But Blackboard and K12 are betting that remedial education will be an exception. About 75 percent of first-year students at community colleges need at least one remedial course, according to a report released earlier this year by the The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. And yet the percentage of students who end up moving beyond such courses is typically less than half. Under the circumstances, it might be hard for faculty to reject outsourced courses on territorial grounds."

5. Somewhere Along the Line - Inside Higher Ed http://t.co/8kzMErN

"A greater share of students who began at higher levels of remediation -- in other words, those levels closest to “college-ready” -- were “of traditional college age when they entered community college,” and they “aspired to more ambitious academic goals,” “enrolled full time during their first year,” “completed college-level coursework beyond the [remediation] sequence,” and “transferred or completed a degree or certificate. ”At the other end of the spectrum, few students who began at the lower levels of remediation “completed the last course in the remedial sequence or beyond.” Black and Hispanic students “were overrepresented” in these lower levels."

6. Average Student Debt: $24,000 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/22/average-student-debt-2400_n_772276.html

"The report reveals that northeastern states have the highest concentration of debt, with averages across states ranging from $13,000 to $30,000. The report looked at graduates of private and public non-profit four-year colleges. Institute for College Access & Success President Lauren Asher told the New York Times that the "consistent growth in debt over the last few years really adds up." She said students should consider federal loans over private loans as they come with more repayment options and borrower protections."

7. New Measurements For Success At Community Colleges? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/21/new-measurements-for-succ_n_771488.html

"Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System currently publishes degree attainment for first-and full-time students who graduate within four years. Those who support a new means of measurement argue that the IPEDS falsely deflates the success of two year institutions by failing to report on students who transfer to a four year college before graduating, as well as on students who never intend to gain a degree (i.e. individuals who seek a certificate or retraining)....The study found that 50 percent of students who passed English classes within their first two years graduated, compared with only 20 percent of students who failed such courses, and that 55 percent of students who passed math classes in their first two years attained a degree -- as opposed to a graduation rate of 21 percent for those who did not earn passing marks. The report's authors contend that such figures should encourage states to make a nuanced effort to increase graduation rates. . . ."

8. Students Applying to More Colleges and More Online, by Caralee Adams - http://t.co/myyrqtW via @educationweek

"The 2010 State of College Admission Report shows that nearly 75 percent of students now apply to three or more colleges, an increase of 14 percent in the past two decades. The percentage of students who submitted seven or more applications reached 23 percent last year, up from 9 percent in 1990. Although most colleges reported increases in the number of applications for fall 2009, the largest proportion since 1996 (29 percent) reported decreases. The process is becoming electronic. About 80 percent of four-year colleges and universities received applications online for the fall 2009 admission cycle, up from 72 percent in 2008, 68 percent in 2007, and 58 percent in 2006."

9. Curious Case of ‘Catnip’ & the Common App http://chronicle.com/blogs/headcount/the-curious-case-of-‘catnip’-and-the-common-application/27589

"At the National Association for College Admission Counseling’s annual conference last month, several counselors discussed what they described as an increasingly common scenario: students using a fast-track application to apply to a college that’s a member of the Common Application. In such cases, high schools cannot electronically submit students’ supporting documents—transcripts, secondary-school reports, and letters of recommendation—to colleges. Why not? Because a member college isn’t able to download those documents until (or unless) a student submits his or her application through the Common Application’s Web site. In other words, a student can bypass the Common Application’s system by submitting a fast-track app, but that student’s counselor cannot do the same. In those instances, counselors say they must send supporting documents through the mail— and they must rely on students to tell them that they’ve filed a fast-track app in the first place."

10. When Choosing A College, What Really Matters? by Abby McCartney Choosing a College Unigo http://t.co/tXRts1I

"The process of matching yourself to a school is different for everyone, and I’m no expert. But I’ve been through it a few times now, with myself, my friends, my sister, and her friends, and we all made a lot of the same mistakes. So, whether you’re compiling an initial list or making a final choice, here are some tips from someone who’s been there before. Three things that do not matter as much as I once thought:"