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."

383. 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. Column: Yes, college is worth the costs, by Rodney K. Smith – http://usat.ly/soYrAn via @USATODAY - "Concerns regarding student indebtedness and educational quality are legitimate, but we are losing our appreciation for education as an investment and stewardship."

3. Number of students attending charter schools soars - Tribune Chronicle - Warren, OH: http://bit.ly/vr0mPY via AddThis - "The growth represents the largest increase in enrollment over a single year since charter schools were founded nearly two decades ago. In all, more than 500 new charter schools were opened in the 2011-12 school year. And about 200,000 more students are enrolled now than a year before, an increase of 13 percent nationwide. . . . But their performance so far has been mixed; a 2009 Stanford University study found only 17 percent performed better than regular public schools while more than twice as many - 37 percent - performed worse. Another 46 percent were about the same."

4. For-profits lag behind other colleges in student outcomes, by Paul Fain Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/vNNUb5 via @AddThis - "The research found that for-profits have some competitive strengths, such as in first-year student retention rates compared to community colleges. But the adjusted data showed for-profits lagging behind other types of colleges in areas such as employment outcomes, student satisfaction with academic offerings, debt levels and loan default rates -- gaps that probably cannot be fully explained, the researchers say, by the greater propensity of students at the colleges to have prior risk factors."

5. “The For-Profit Postsecondary School Sector: Nimble Critters or Agile Predators?” by David J. Deming, et al - http://www.frbatlanta.org/documents/news/conferences/11employment_education_demming.pdf

"In this article, we describe the schools, students, and programs in this sector, its phenomenal growth in the past decade, and its relationship to the federal and state governments. The for-profits seem to have forged a highly successful business model. They appear to be nimble critters that train non-traditional learners for jobs in the fast growing areas, such as health care and information technology. But there is a potential dark side. Default rates on the loans taken out by their students vastly exceed those of other institutions of higher education and audit studies have shown that some for-profits have highly aggressive and even fraudulent recruiting techniques. Are the for-profits “nimble critters” or “agile predators”?"

6. What's the matter with high school counselors? by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_162-57332594/whats-the-matter-with-high-school-counselors/?tag=mncol;lst;7 - "The new national survey, which was released by the College Board, detected a huge divide between educational goals and what is actually occurring in the schools. For instance, 85 percent of surveyed counselors agreed that schools should work to ensure that all students complete high school and are ready to succeed in college and careers, but only 30 percent said that this was the mission of their own schools. Among those surveyed, 55 percent believe schools require either a complete overhaul or major changes to improve student success."

7. Dual Enrollment Improves College Going, Under the Right Circumstances, Studies Find - http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/dual-enrollment-improves-college-going-under-the-right-circumstances-studies-find/38887 - "Dual enrollment, in which students take college courses while they’re still in high school, can increase college enrollment and completion, but its effectiveness depends on which classes students take and where they take them, according to two new studies from the National Center for Postsecondary Research. The research, which echoes previous studies, found strong positive effects for students who took the classes on college campuses, but not those who took them at their high schools. It also found similar completion rates between students who took dual-enrollment classes and those who took Advanced Placement ones."

8. Penn State analyzes football program, by Kevin Johnson and Kelly Whiteside – http://usat.ly/rPeYMb via USATODAY - "In his first extensive interview since taking office last month, Penn State President Rodney Erickson said Tuesday that he seeks to transform the university's public face from a football factory to a "world class research institution."

9. Paterno’s Payback? Penn State Football is No. 1 in Academic Bowlsays @kaylawebley - http://ideas.time.com/2011/12/07/paternos-revenge-penn-state-football-is-no-1-in-academic-bowl/ via @TIMEIdeas - "But the more ironic news is that the team that topped the list is Penn State, whose football program coached by the legendary Joe Paterno was recently rocked by a sex-abuse scandal. According to the analysis, Penn State graduates 80% of its football players in six years or less and also shows no achievement gap between its black and white players, which NAF says is extremely rare for Division I football teams. (At LSU, by comparison, the team’s black players are 32% less likely to graduate than their white counterparts.) Winning the top honors in the academic bowl further proves the success of Paterno’s “grand experiment,” which was his idea that major-college athletes could contend for national championships while excelling in the classroom."

10. D.C. schools have largest black-white achievement gap in federal study - by Lyndsey Layton - http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/dc-schools-have-largest-black-white-achievement-gap-in-federal-study/2011/12/06/gIQArNnMcO_story.html?tid=sm_btn_twitter via @washingtonpost - "D.C. public schools have the largest achievement gap between black and white students among the nation’s major urban school systems, a distinction laid bare in a federal study released Wednesday. The District also has the widest achievement gap between white and Hispanic students, the study found, compared with results from other large systems and the national average."

11. Keeping Score When It Counts: Assessing the 2011-12 Bowl-bound College Football Teams - http://tidesport.org/RGRC/2011/2011_FBS_Bowl_Study[FINAL].pdf - "Lapchick said, “Notre Dame and Northwestern would have played for the National Championship if there was a national championship game for Graduation Success Rates among bowl teams. Both teams graduated at least 94 percent of all football student-athletes and at least 92 percent of African-American football student-athletes. Notre Dame graduated 100 percent of their African-American footballstudent-athletes."

316. Labor Day 2011

Here are some links to recent stories about college access and success.

by

Joe Rottenborn

Executive Director, Mahoning Valley College Access Program (MVCAP)

1. A School District Mimics Charters, Hoping Success Will Follow: http://nyti.ms/mTJJTk

2. Harvard's a Bargain--If You're From the UK http://t.co/9G2GMPk via @TIME

3. Legislative Update: Higher Ed Bill Headed to Governor's Desk - La Canada Flintridge, http://patch.com/A-lGkJ

4. Many U.S. schools adding iPads, trimming textbooks – USATODAY.com: http://t.co/cUAHsLR via @USATODAY

5. Technology in Schools Faces Questions on Value: http://nyti.ms/os0ePQ

6. Before the First School Bell, Teachers in Bronx Make House Calls: http://nyti.ms/q5ewo8

7. Students Find Ways to Thwart Facebook Bans: http://nyti.ms/pqWPdI

8. The important college question that goes unanswered hometownlife.com http://t.co/icHuGkn via @Hometownlife

9. Push for a college degree based on misleading arguments (opinion) cleveland.com http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2011/09/push_for_a_college_degree_base.html

10. Can schools narrow the achievement gap? Lansing State Journal lansingstatejournal.com http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20110904/NEWS05/109040512/Can-schools-narrow-achievement-gap-

11. Federal government role in K-12 eduction — equity and funding - Midland Daily News: Opinion: http://t.co/kpmjxPZ via @AddThis

12. VIEWPOINTS: Summer learning loss contributes to student underachievement al.com http://blog.al.com/birmingham-news-commentary/2011/09/viewpoints_summer_learning_los.html

13. The GI Bill: A passport to a better life - News - The Orange County Register http://www.ocregister.com/articles/-314706--.html

14. Read The Joe Rottenborn Daily ▸ today's top stories via @rottenbornj ▸ http://t.co/x7cmxSo

297. 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 ▸ today's top stories on college access and success via @rottenbornj ▸ http://t.co/UftEiOc

2. NCAA cost-of-attendance puzzle: many schools, many methods, by Calder Silcox, Steve Berkowitz, and Jodi Upton - http://t.co/6IG4nQ3 via @USATODAY - "Instead, each school's financial-aid office makes an estimate — and each school uses its own formula. An estimate for in-state and out-of-state students is reported to the NCAA each year."

3. New school set to open, by Virginia Shank - Tribune Chronicle - Warren, OH: http://bit.ly/ofUjGz - "In 1997 the state legislature passed a law allowing community, or charter schools, to operate in Ohio. According to the Ohio Department of Education, there now are some 300 such schools in Ohio, including several in the Mahoning Valley. The privately operated schools receive public dollars, and typically cater to at-risk pupils. Like other community schools, STEAM is to be funded with public money; therefore, there is no cost to the family for a student to attend."

4. Debt, Dropouts and Degrees, by Libby A. Nelson - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/n6DiJq - "The report, “Debt to Degree: A New Way of Measuring College Success,” was released Wednesday by Education Sector. Its authors say they aim to give a more complete picture of higher education -- rather than judging by graduation rates alone or by default rates alone -- by dividing the total amount of money undergraduates borrow at a college by the number of degrees it awards."

5. Debt to Degree: A New Way of Measuring College Success, by Kevin Carey and Erin Dillon - http://www.educationsector.org/sites/default/files/publications/Debt%20to%20Degree%20CYCT_RELEASE.pdf - "The American higher education system is plagued by two chronicproblems: dropouts and debt. Barely half of the students who start college geta degree within six years, and graduation rates at less-selective colleges oftenhover at 25 percent or less. At the same time, student loan debt is at an all-timehigh, recently passing credit card debt in total volume. Loan default rates haverisen sharply in recent years, consigning a growing number of students to yearsof financial misery. In combination, drop-outs and debt are a major threat to thenation’s ability to help students become productive, well-educated citizens."

6. Texas orders ATI to stop enrolling new students - http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9OORN3G2.htm - "The Texas Workforce Commission has ordered ATI Enterprises Inc. to halt new enrollment at its 16 careers schools and complete training programs for current students. . . . The commission in April announced the company had been put on probation and required an outside auditor to review 2010 placement results."

7. University Reveals the Secrets of Winning Merit Scholarships, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://t.co/6qmUu8v via @cbsmoneywatch - "That’s why I was excited when the University of Rochester decided to share its fascinating accounting of just what mattered when the school was deciding which applicants would get its latest round of merit awards. After the university’s freshmen class had been selected, Jonathan Burdick, Rochester’s dean of undergraduate admissions and financial aid, sat down this summer and analyzed the merit scholarship numbers to determine what admission factors had influenced the scholarship decisions."

8. Bloomberg to Use Own Funds in Plan to Aid Minority Youth, by Michael Barbaro and Fernanda Santos - http://nyti.ms/qOwY7K - "Even as crime has fallen and graduation rates have risen in New York over the past decade, city officials said that black and Latino men, especially those between ages 16 and 24, remained in crisis by nearly every measure, including rates of arrest, school suspension and poverty. Although the populations of young white, black and Latino men in New York are roughly the same size, 84 percent of those in the city’s detention facilities and nearly all of those admitted to children’s and family services facilities are black and Latino youth, according to data from the Bloomberg administration. “The magnitude of the disparities is stunning,” said Linda I. Gibbs, the deputy mayor for health and human services. “It’s tragic.”

9. Teach for America 2011 acceptance rate: 11 percent, by Jenna Johnson - Campus Overload - http://t.co/TQlr2g6 via @washingtonpost - "Since 2008, Teach for America has compiled a “top contributors list” to rank schools of similar size by the number of students who are accepted into the program. This year, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor had the highest number of students selected, with 119. For medium-sized schools, Harvard led the pack with 66 placements. And for small schools with fewer than 2,999 undergraduates, Spelman College had 36 placements."

10. America's Top Colleges: Forbes List - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/03/forbes-top-colleges-for_n_917203.html#s320311&title=Williams_College - "For the second year in a row, Williams College, a small, western-Massachusetts liberal arts school, has been named as the best undergraduate institution in America. With total annual costs adding up to nearly $55,000, a Williams education is certainly not cheap, but the 2,000 undergraduates here have among the highest four-year graduation rates in the country, win loads of prestigious national awards like Rhodes and Marshall Scholarships, and are often rewarded with high-paying careers."

11. HBCU Voices: Students On Why HBCUs Remain Relevant - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/03/hbcu-voices-students-on-w_n_917066.html#s320667&title=Danyelle_Gary_Hampton - "Here at HuffPost College, we asked current HBCU students to share what their schools meant to them. The response to this question was overwhelming. Many students said they were accepted to "predominantly white institutions," but chose instead HBCUs to connect to their past and present. Others said they sought the communities they found at HBCUs, or wanted to continue a family tradition of HBCU education."

269. Review of 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 ▸ today's top stories via @rottenbornj ▸ http://t.co/UftEiOc

2. Our view: Charter school debate overlooks lessons learned - http://usat.ly/miWolo via @USATODAY - "In the debate over how to improve the nation's educational system, there is typically no middle ground on the value of charter schools. You're either for them or against them. But in their fervor, both sides are missing a more fundamental question: Which charters work, and why?"

3. Opposing view: Rethink the charter experiment, by Richard D. Kahlenberg - http://usat.ly/kGQ22Y via @USATODAY - "After two decades, it's time to fundamentally rethink the charter school experiment. The prevailing charter model isn't working because it is based on two profoundly flawed ideas: that teachers' unions are the biggest problem in education; and that packing poor kids into separate, high-poverty charter schools will produce educational success."

4. District Dossier: Clinton to Charters: 'Keep This Country in the Change Business,' by Mary Ann Zehr - http://t.co/PfbZcDL - "Peter C. Groff, the president and chief executive officer of the alliance, called Clinton an "early champion of charter schools" and "instrumental" to their growth. He observed that Clinton had created in 1994 the federal Charter Schools Program, which is now a $256 million program, to help finance such schools. Over Clinton's presidency, the number of charter schools grew from one in 1992 to 2,000, he said.Now the United States has 5,277 charter schools, which make up 5.4 percent of all public schools, according to the alliance."

5. Many From A-Rated N.Y.C. Schools Need Help at CUNY, by Anna M. Phillips and Robert Gebeloff - http://nyti.ms/mBTNMI - "Of the 70 high schools that earned an “A” on the most recent city progress report and have at least one-third of graduates attending a college of the City University of New York, 46 posted remediation rates above 50 percent, according to reports sent to the city’s high schools."

6. Counseling in an ‘Error-Averse’ Culture, by Eric Hoover - http://chronicle.com/blogs/headcount/28410/28410 - "Over the last two days here at the annual conference of the Association of College Counselors in Independent Schools, I’ve heard tales of parents threatening to sue schools after their child didn’t get into a selective college. I heard another about a student who publicly blamed her counselor after being denied by her dream school. And I heard one counselor say this: “I spend more of my time counseling parents.”

7. Admissions and the Adolescent Brain, by Eric Hoover - http://chronicle.com/blogs/headcount/admissions-and-the-adolescent-brain/28400 - "In other words, helping a teenager apply to college is not only an admissions issue—it’s also a developmental issue. As such, there’s much room for teaching. Guilt and punishment typically won’t help a teenager remember to turn in his application materials on time, Ms. Deak said, but helping him develop a plan for remembering to meet such deadlines just might."

8. An Expensive Education: Top 10 Priciest Prep Schools, by Tim Newcomb - http://t.co/KWhhbEm via @TIMENewsFeed - "And you thought spending over $30,000 per year for an Ivy League education was a hefty bill. Private schools throughout the East Coast make Ivy League price tags look like bargains, easily topping $30,000 per year and even passing the $40,000 threshold. And that is just the day-school tuition, which doesn’t touch how high room and board rates soar, sometimes adding as much as $10,000 to the bill."

260. Review of 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. Reformers, please listen to what parents want for schools, by Helen Gym - #cnn http://t.co/BiQ76Z2 - "I can tell you all of these things because as a parent, the true meaning of a quality school lies in a strong child- and family-centered educational mission that recognizes education as a "process of living" and school life as "real and vital" to our children and families, as American philosopher John Dewey wrote more than half a century ago."

2. Twitter finds a place in the classroom, by Dan Simon - #cnn http://t.co/ajdSMRx - "A technology enthusiast, Legaspi learned how to incorporate the social network into his 8th-grade curriculum while attending the annual Macworld convention in San Francisco earlier this year."I had an aha moment there," he said. "I said to myself, 'This is going to really engage my students.'"

3. An Overnight Train Ride to a Final Destination: by Sophia Gimenez - http://nyti.ms/kBrHkR - "No matter whom I talked to at Knox, I distinctly remember the sincerity and zeal that radiated from their character as well as an insatiable inquisitiveness that ignited inspiration with every word."

4. Car Sales and College Graduation, by Nate Johnson - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/mraaEu - "The timely national release of top-line completion numbers would put a day on the calendar to spark a recurring national discussion about how we’re doing across state lines and relative to one another and to our ambitious goals. We can imagine states and colleges themselves vying to be among the top-performing institutions and using it in their marketing and recruitment efforts."

5. Hechinger Report Skip senior year and go straight to college?, by Scott Elliott and Sarah Butrymowicz: http://bit.ly/iTPYBc - "When the Indiana legislature passed the budget at the end of April, it also launched Daniels’ plan, which allows high school students who complete their core requirements by the end of their junior year to skip senior year and go straight to college.Money the state would have spent on senior year will become scholarship money — $6,000 to $8,000 for most students, depending on their school district."

6. Mich. Early College Builds Pipeline into Health Careers, by Christina A. Samuels - http://t.co/e9NM6mx via @educationweek - "It joined with the 18,600-student Dearborn school district and Henry Ford Community College to create Henry Ford Early College, a five-year program that allows students from area school districts to graduate with a high school diploma, an associate of science degree, and a certification in one of 12 allied health fields, such as surgery technology, radiology, or biotechnology, at no cost to their families."

7. Sen. Harkin Presses Education Dept. on Effectiveness of 'Gainful Employment' Rule, by Kelly Field - http://chronicle.com/article/Sen-Harkin-Presses-Education/127786/ - "The rule is "a modest first step, but I think its going to take a much more aggressive policy," said Mr. Harkin, who is chairman of the Senate education committee.The regulation, which was released last week, will cut off federal student aid to vocational programs whose students struggle to repay their debts. Under the rule, programs that fail to meet federal benchmarks for loan repayment and debt-to-income ratios in three out of four years will become ineligible to receive federal student aid."

8. Backlash: Are These End Times for Charter Schools? by Andrew J. Rotherham - http://t.co/HyxvUYa via Time - "First created in 1992, charter schools are public schools that are open to all students but are run independently of local school districts. There are now more than 5,000 of them educating more than a million students. Charter schools range in quality from among the absolute best public schools in the country to among the absolute worst. That variance in quality is proving a political Achilles heel for charter schools and is fueling a serious backlash."

9. 10 Least Expensive Private Colleges - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/07/10-least-expensive-privat_n_872917.html#s289000&title=Berea_College_910 - "Private colleges are generally more expensive than public ones. Although, many private colleges defray the cost of tuition with financial aid (on average as much as 50%), sometimes even that kind of discount is not enough to justify attending the school.However, some private colleges are just simply cheaper from the start than others."

10. Eye on Education, Part I: City school students, by Tim Louis Macaluso - http://www.rochestercitynewspaper.com/news/articles/2011/06/Eye-on-Education-Part-I-City-school-students/ - "During the last 30 years, Rochester's schools have become increasingly segregated, graduation rates have fallen, and the achievement gap between white students and their black and Hispanic peers has widened. Nowhere is the achievement gap more evident than with young black male students - something many people are calling a national crisis."