385. 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. Shooting at Va. Tech reopens wounds from 2007, by Greg Toppo – http://usat.ly/vPct47 via USATODAY - "Tragedy has again struck Virginia Tech," school President Charles Steger said. "Our hearts are broken again."

3. Field Notes From This Year's Application Season, by Rebecca R. Ruiz: http://nyti.ms/rDfRTX - "While our survey was unscientific, it brought into focus some themes, including increased applicant interest in public colleges – both in and out of state – and an apparent rise in the number of students who have been filing applications early this year, sometimes at the prodding of the colleges themselves."

4. Essay calls for sustained effort by colleges to focus on economic inequality, by Gloria Nemerowicz Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/sCDUIe - "Copious data, like Mortenson’s cited above, indicate that a caste-like education system exists in America. The economic group you are born into is the best predictor of your access to and completion of a college degree. This should be unacceptable to a democracy. It should be unacceptable to higher education. How can we feel good about being part of an enterprise in human development that solidly succeeds only with wealthy people?"

5. Left Behind: Unequal Opportunity in Higher Education, by Richard D. Kahlenberg - http://tcf.org/media-center/pdfs/pr19/leftbehindrc.pdf - "Low-income students are ill served in America’s higher education system in almost every respect: general enrollment rates, general graduation rates, and enrollment and graduation from elite colleges."

6. High School Test Terrain Shifting From Exit Exams to College-Readiness, by Catherine Gewertz - http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2011/12/high_school_testing_increasing.html via @educationweek - "Fewer students are being required to pass exit exams to graduate from high school, but high school testing is increasing because more states are requiring college- and career-readiness tests, according to a study released today."

7. National Student Clearinghouse Persistence Measures Include Transfers, by Beckie Supiano -http://chronicle.com/article/National-Student-Clearinghouse/130046/ - "Persistence varies by sector, the report says. Private, nonprofit four-year colleges had the highest rate, 91.4 percent, while public two-year colleges had the lowest rate, 74.9 percent."

8. Ravitch: ‘Miracle schools’ not so miraculous after all - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/ravitch-miracle-schools-not-so-miraculous-after-all/2011/12/07/gIQAP565fO_blog.html?tid=sm_btn_tw - "I have said it before, and I'll say it again: There are no silver bullets in education. There are no magic feathers that enable elephants like Dumbo to fly. It's hard work to improve schools. It takes dedication, resources, and time. And the work is never done, the magic number of 100 percent is always out of reach."

277. Summer College News

Here are some links to today's stories
about college access and success.
by
Joe Rottenborn
Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

1. Read The Joe Rottenborn Daily on http://t.co/UftEiOc

2. Dozens of Atlanta educators falsified tests, state report confirms #cnn - http://t.co/En0SGWx - "I think the overall conclusion was that testing and results and targets being reached became more important than actual learning for children," Deal said. "And when reaching targets became the goal, it was a goal that was pursued with no excuses."

3. NCAA could see 'fundamental changes' in way it operates, by Steve Wieberg - http://usat.ly/q0MqFN via @USATODAY - "The system is bent. If not broken."There's a lot of motive to make some fundamental changes . . . more sweeping changes than we've probably seen in the past," Big 12 Conference commissioner Dan Beebe says."

4. Roundup: Michigan Admissions, Student Loans and Prospects for Film Graduates, by Jacques Steinberg - http://nyti.ms/qREYEI - "Summer is typically a slow season on the admissions news (and news-you-can-use) front. But several articles over the holiday weekend caught our eye, and we wanted to bring them to the attention of those readers — especially future applicants and their families — who may have missed them."

5. Teacher Beat: UPDATED: NEA Delegates Take Swipe at Teach For America, by Stephen Sawchuk - http://t.co/kavQ4kb via @educationweek - "In the union's strongest stance yet against the popular Teach For America alternative-certification program, National Education Association delegates approved an item that accuses TFA of taking jobs from other teachers in locales with job shortages."

6. District Dossier: State Investigation Reveals Widespread Cheating in Atlanta Schools, by Christina Samuels - http://t.co/SmaUtWO - "Beverly L. Hall, the former superintendent of Atlanta schools, knew about cheating allegations on state standardized tests and either ignored or tried to hide them, the Associated Press reported after obtaining a copy of an 800-page state investigation report.
Earlier today, Gov. Nathan Deal's office released a synopsis of the report's findings, which noted that investigators found evidence of cheating at close to 80 percent of the Atlanta schools where they examined the 2009 administration of the Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests, or CRCT. Teachers and principals at more than four dozen schools are accused of helping students, or changing the answers once students handed in their test sheet."

7. Running a Race Against Ourselves, by Jonathan Plucker & David Rutkowski - http://t.co/qXtKqhE via @educationweek - "As would be expected, many of these reforms have been touted as the silver bullets that will result in major improvements in American education. However, the dirty little secret among researchers is that these reforms will almost certainly have little to no effect on the performance of most students.Volumes of nonpartisan research over the past 20 years suggest that most reforms (e.g., vouchers, charters, merit pay) have marginal effects on student achievement."

8. Tight Budgets Whittle Away School Days, by Sam Dillon - http://nyti.ms/jChMUm - "For two decades, advocates have been working to modernize the nation’s traditional 180-day school calendar, saying that the languid summers evoked in “To Kill a Mockingbird” have a pernicious underside: each fall, many students — especially those who are poor — return to school having forgotten much of what they learned the previous year. The Obama administration picked up the mantra: at his 2009 confirmation hearing, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan declared, “Our school day is too short, our school week is too short, our school year is too short,” but its efforts in this realm have not been as successful as other initiatives."

9. Top 10 YouTube Videos Posted by Colleges, and What They Mean, by Rachel Wiseman - http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/top-10-youtube-videos-posted-by-colleges-and-what-they-mean/32070 - "More than 400 colleges and universities have set up channels on YouTube as part of the YouTube EDU section of the popular video site, but university officials admit they are still experimenting with the service and learning what types of videos resonate with off-campus audiences.With data provided by YouTube, The Chronicle has determined the 10 most popular videos on YouTube EDU of the 2010-11 academic year (from June 2010 to June 2011)."

10. The 24 Most and Least Affordable Public Colleges, by Kayla Webley - http://moneyland.time.com/2011/07/06/the-24-most-and-least-affordable-public-colleges/ - "Last week, the U.S. Department of Education released a new web tool that lets users calculate the costs of getting a college degree. While much has been made of the highest and lowest tuition rates, you can also use the tool to calculate the “real” cost for an academic year, often called the net price. That includes the cost of attendance (tuition, required fees, books, supplies, average room and board and other expenses) minus grant and scholarship aid. Using the data, TIME Moneyland assembled a list of 24 of the most and least affordable U.S. public colleges."

11. As would-be students ‘melt,’ colleges try to keep cool, by Wayne Washington - TheState.com: http://bit.ly/pecBEU - "Based on her 32 years in higher education, Perry Wilson, director of admissions at Florence’s Francis Marion University, said schools face a melt percentage of about 10 percent — that is, one in 10 students tell a college or university they plan [to enter] in the fall but end up not enrolling."

175. MVCAP fyi

See free MVCAP e-books on college admissions and financial aid for sharing, printing, and downloading at our online resource library: http://issuu.com/mvcap

1. More Students Seek Avenues to Gay-Friendly Colleges, by Sergio N. Candido - http://nyti.ms/elZ0Ft

"One website that rates whether universities are gay friendly, the LGBT-Friendly Campus Climate Index, has gained popularity over the past year.The Index looks at policies, programs and practices each institution provides to its gay community and grades the university. Shane L. Windmeyer, co-founder of Campus Pride, the national nonprofit that runs Climate Index, said the increase in numbers of people going to the site is dramatic.
Visits have almost doubled from 6,850 a month in 2007, when the website was launched, to 13,580 a month in 2010, Windmeyer said."

2. Massage Therapists or R.N.s, by David Moltz - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/fKCq42

“For-profit colleges tend to focus on health care ‘support’ occupations like medical assisting, massage therapy, and dental assisting rather than ‘practitioner’ or ‘technical’ health occupations like registered nursing, medicine, or diagnostic technologist fields,” Morgan said."

3. The States of Online Regulation, by Steve Kolowich - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/hJz6tC

"Online education seems to be winning the battle against the initial skepticism about its legitimacy. Online enrollments have grown at nine times the rate of classroom-based education since 2002, according to the Sloan Consortium (with major buy-in in the public sector)."

4. College Retention Rates Improving at Two-Year Schools, Declining at Four-Year Schools -http://www.act.org/news/2011/01/20/college-retention/

"The percentage of students at two-year colleges who returned to the same institution for their second year of school has been trending up, from 53 percent in 2005 to a record high of 56 percent currently. The retention rate at four-year private colleges, in contrast, has been trending down, from 75 percent in 2005 to 72 percent currently."

5. 25 Highest Application Fees, by Brian Burnsed - US News and World Report: http://t.co/JQZN7LG

"Among national universities, which are typically the largest schools that receive the most applications, the average application fee was higher than the national average: $46.78. Only three schools—the Illinois Institute of Technology, Loyola University Chicago, and St. Louis University—reported they have no fee (8 of the 260 national universities surveyed didn't respond to the question)."

6. 8 Reasons Not to Get a Business Degree, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://t.co/nk5R6t8

"Thinking about getting a business degree? Business degrees are hot, but you might want to reconsider your decision. Here are eight reasons why you should not major in business:"

7. Success of College-Readiness Intervention Hard to Gauge, by Catherine Gewertz - http://t.co/N24rrXW via @educationweek

‎"They created a test that sends rising high school seniors an early signal about their readiness in mathematics and literacy, and allows those who meet the mark to go right into credit-bearing coursework as college freshmen, skipping remedial classes. To complete the picture, they crafted a suite of courses to bring lagging 12th graders up to college-level snuff and added training for preservice and in-service teachers."

8. To Really Learn, Quit Studying and Take a Test, by Pam Belluck - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/science/21memory.html?_r=1&hpw

"The research, published online Thursday in the journal Science, found that students who read a passage, then took a test asking them to recall what they had read, retained about 50 percent more of the information a week later than students who used two other methods."

9. 2-Year Colleges Get Details of $2-Billion Grant Program, by Jennifer Gonzalez - http://chronicle.com/article/2-Year-Colleges-Get-Details-of/126006/

"President Obama wants every American to have at least one year of postsecondary education and wants the United States, by 2020, to once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world."

10. In a tough economy, new focus on job-oriented certificates, by Joanne Jacobs - Hechinger Report: http://t.co/GuXyIhW

"Labor economists and some educators believe career-driven degrees should become an increasingly common choice and are advising students to pursue skills-oriented fields of study they feel offer better job opportunities."

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