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."

380. 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. New book says elite black students don't try for high-paying jobs, by Allie Grasgreen Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/saSoWE via AddThis - "Yet, many of the students she interviewed socialized primarily with other black peers. “While black students may derive substantial value from these networks, there is also a considerable downside to their separation from the wider campus community. Racially integrated networks provide access to information otherwise unavailable to these students, including the existence of occupations they had never considered, the awareness of how to obtain training for them, and connections to professionals (white and nonwhite) who possess them.”

3. Poverty Matters, by Peter DeWitt - http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/finding_common_ground/2011/11/poverty_matters.html via @educationweek - "On average, professional parents spoke over 2,000 words per hour to their children, working class parents spoke about 1,300, and welfare mothers spoke about 600. So by age 3, children of professionals had vocabularies that were nearly 50% greater than those of working-class children and twice as large as those of welfare children" (Rothstein, 2004, p. 28)."

4. On Long Island, SAT Cheating Was Hardly a Secret, by JENNY ANDERSON and PETER APPLEBOME: http://nyti.ms/vPRg6d - "In Great Neck, a place where the high-achieving schools are the center of public life, and where high-priced tutors and admissions consultants are routine advantages for the wealthy, educators and parents are mortified that the community’s reputation could be muddied by the SAT scandal. But while it is clear that only a tiny proportion of students at the schools cheated, the scheme came to light only because it was widespread and well known enough that officials at North got wind of it."

5. Consumer Advocate Says States Fall Short in Oversight of For-Profit Colleges, by Goldie Blumenstyk - http://chronicle.com/article/Consumer-Advocate-Says-States/129978/ - "While the federal government and some states have recently increased their regulation of the sector, "only a few states have devoted sufficient resources in recent years to challenge for-profit school abuses and provide relief for students," says the report from the National Consumer Law Center. "Regardless of their views on how best to deliver higher education, all regulators and policy makers should be against ripping off students."

6. What matters most in college admissions — money or merit? by Esther Quintero - The Answer Sheet - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/what-matters-most-in-college-admissions--money-or-merit/2011/11/30/gIQALNKEJO_blog.html?tid=sm_btn_twitter via @washingtonpost - "Money, not only merit, matters in college admissions. According to the survey of 462 directors and managers, in the face of generalized budget cuts, universities are favoring applicants who don’t need financial assistance to pay their tuition.About 22 percent agreed that “the financial downturn [had] forced them to pay more attention to an applicants’ ability to pay when [making] admissions decisions.” Directors acknowledged seeking more candidates who would not need financial aid, including out-of-state and international students. Furthermore, 10 percent of four-year colleges reported that the admitted students who could pay in full had lower grades than their peers who couldn’t."

7. Guest post: In defense of a liberal education, by Christopher Nelson - College, Inc. -http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/college-inc/post/guest-post-in-defense-of-a-liberal-education/2011/12/02/gIQAj8plKO_blog.html?tid=sm_btn_twitter via @washingtonpost -"The best educated person today, just as yesterday, is one fully capable of adapting to or taking advantage of changing conditions, precisely because the well-educated adult has integrity of character, a rootedness in essentials, and a self-understanding that makes it possible to live well and consistently in an unpredictable world."

373. 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. Lee El Diario de Joe Rottenborn ▸ noticias destacadas del dia via @rottenbornj ▸ http://paper.li/rottenbornj

2. Panel's Failure Means Education Cuts in '13, by Rebecca R. Ruiz: http://nyti.ms/tvlcqO -"While the Pell Grant program is exempt from cuts in the first year, the other student-aid programs will lose $134-million, reducing aid to at least 1.3 million students. Career, technical, and adult education will lose $136-million, affecting 1.4 million students, says the committee."

3. More Charges, More Details in SAT Cheating Scandal Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/rwfAXd via AddThis - "Some of those charged allegedly paid others to take the SAT on their behalf. Prosecutors said that they believed that 40 students and former students were involved, but that the statute of limitations prevented charges from being brought against all of them."

4. Poll shows concern over Penn State and other athletic programs, by Allie Grasgreen Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/v5PVRh via AddThis - "A full 72 percent of respondents said Division I college athletic programs have “too much influence over college life.” Only 3 percent said programs have too little influence; 16 percent said they have “about the right amount” and 9 percent were unsure."

5. GAO releases new investigation of for-profit colleges, by Paul Fain Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/tXujkA via AddThis - "The U.S. Government Accountability Office has released results from a second undercover “secret shopper” investigation of for-profit colleges, this time attempting to enroll a fictitious student online at 15 unnamed institutions. The findings were mixed, but investigators uncovered problems with how seven of the colleges handled online course grading, academic dishonesty, or students’ exit counseling."

6. Finding Common Ground: Why Educators Should Join Twitter, by Peter DeWitt - http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/finding_common_ground/2011/11/why_educators_should_join_twitter.html via @educationweek - "We live in the 21st century where our students don't just "do" social networking; it is a part of who they are as digital citizens. To us, it's a big deal to get on Facebook or Twitter, and to our students it is something they cannot fathom living without. Understanding their connection with those sites will increase an educator's connection with their students. Being able to talk their language may even provide an opportunity to breakthrough to a hard to reach student."

7. More Students Charged in Long Island SAT Cheating Case, By JENNY ANDERSON and WINNIE HU: http://nyti.ms/uA0Cx7 - "The investigation began when administrators at Great Neck North looked into student rumors. Their focus soon fell on students who had registered to take the tests outside the district, and those whose scores and grades showed a disparity. They turned over the details to prosecutors, who opened a broad examination."

8. How the Future Looks From High School http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/11/22/how-the-future-looks-from-high-school via @roomfordebate - "How does the future look to a high school senior? We checked in with 15 of them, at four American high schools."

9. Undercover Probe Finds Lax Academic Standards at Some For-Profit Colleges, by Kelly Field - http://chronicle.com/article/Undercover-Probe-Finds-Lax/129881/ - "The probe, which is described in a report made public Tuesday, found that staff at six of the 12 colleges that enrolled the investigators tolerated plagiarism or awarded credit for incomplete or shoddy work."

352. 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)

(I'm just back from Portland, OR.)

1. Facebook's Impact on Student Grades, by Rebecca R. Ruiz - http://nyti.ms/nMA4mn -"While overall time spent on Facebook negatively affected G.P.A., the results were not clear-cut. As it turned out, those who frequently shared links on Facebook or checked the site to see what friends were up to tended to have higher grades. Those students who posted status updates tended to have lower grades. . . . Meanwhile — contradicting the zero-sum logic of some who might believe that a minute spent social networking is a minute spent not attending to schoolwork — the study found no substantive link between time spent on Facebook and time spent studying."

2. Online students might feel less accountable to honor codes, by Steve Kolowich Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/rRjY7Q via AddThis - "In a series of experiments, researchers at Ohio University found that students in fully online psychology courses who signed an honor code promising not to cheat broke that pledge at a significantly higher rate than did students in a “blended” course that took place primarily in a classroom. “The more distant students are, the more disconnected they feel, and the more likely it is that they’ll rationalize cheating,” Frank M. LoSchiavo, one of the authors, conjectured in an interview with Inside Higher Ed."

3. College Admissions: What Do Schools Really Care About? by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://moneywatch.bnet.com/spending/blog/college-solution/college-admissions-what-do-schools-really-care-about/6985/ via @cbsmoneywatch - "A new college admission study by the National Association for College Admission Counseling, which represents many colleges and universities, provides a handy cheat sheet on what schools do value when they review applications. . . . Clearly the best things that teenagers can do to increase their chances of getting accepted is to perform well in college prep courses and to make sure they include some rigorous classes in their schedule."

4. How Student Loan Borrowers Are Getting Into Trouble, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://moneywatch.bnet.com/spending/blog/college-solution/how-student-loan-borrowers-are-getting-into-trouble/6903/ via @cbsmoneywatch - "Private student loans don’t provide the protections that federal students loans offer and yet a new federal study suggests that an alarming number of college students are turning to private lenders before they’ve taken full advantage of their federal options."

5. Hechinger More, better early education could help close California’s achievement gap, by Sarah Garland: http://hechingerreport.org/content/more-better-early-education-could-help-close-californias-achievement-gap_6653/#.TqbKtAVPJkM.twitter via AddThis - "In California, the state with the largest population of Hispanic students in the country, the achievement gap starts early—long before children enter school.Hispanic children are much less likely to enroll in preschool than white or black children, and begin kindergarten more than half a year behind their white counterparts. First-generation immigrant students, many who speak only Spanish, start out more than a year behind. One way to combat this problem, educators argue, is enrolling more Hispanic children in preschool, where they can learn to count, say the alphabet and practice the other pre-reading and math skills they will need later on."

6. Push Is On to Add Time to School, by Nora Fleming - http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/10/26/09elt_ep.h31.html via @educationweek - "But while policymakers and recently proposed federal legislation promote expanded learning time as a strategy for school turnaround, some worry that it may be gaining steam too rapidly as a fix for schools that lack the know-how, resources, or research to implement it effectively."

7. NAEP's Odd Definition of Proficiency, by James Harvey - http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/10/26/09harvey.h31.html via @educationweek - "Joanne Weiss [is] the chief of staff to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. According to an article in the Aug. 24 issue of Education Week, Weiss said the practice of permitting each state to set its own proficiency standards amounts to “lying to parents, lying to children, lying to teachers and principals about the work they’re doing.” . . . The No Child Left Behind Act, passed by Congress in 2001 as the latest reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, permitted states to develop their own assessments and set their own proficiency standards to measure student achievement. Most states, for their purposes, quite sensibly defined proficiency as performance at grade level.What about NAEP? Oddly, NAEP’s proficient standard has little to do with grade-level performance or even proficiency as most people understand the term."

8. Screen Time Higher Than Ever for Children, by Tamar Lewin - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/us/screen-time-higher-than-ever-for-children-study-finds.html?_r=1&hpw - "Despite the American Academy of Pediatricians’ longstanding recommendations to the contrary, children under 8 are spending more time than ever in front of screens, according to a study scheduled for release Tuesday. The report also documents for the first time an emerging “app gap” in which affluent children are likely to use mobile educational games while those in low-income families are the most likely to have televisions in their bedrooms."

9. College Readiness Is Lacking, City Reports Show, by Fernanda Santos - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/education/25progress.html?src=recg - "Only one in four students who enter high school in New York City are ready for college after four years, and less than half enroll, according to the A-through-F high school report cards released on Monday."

10. When the Answer to 'Access or Excellence?' Has to Be 'Both' by Beckie Supiano - http://chronicle.com/article/When-the-Answer-to-Access-or/129423/ - "Pursuing both excellence and access is something most colleges try to do, and it's never easy. Top faculty and state-of-the-art facilities cost money, but raising tuition can shut some students out. If the college makes scholarships to attract high-performing students a priority, it might not be able to support those with financial need."

11. Business leaders inject themselves in school reform, by Valerie Strauss - The Answer Sheet - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/business-leaders-inject-themselves-in-school-reform/2011/10/24/gIQArm5mFM_blog.html?tid=sm_btn_twitter via @washingtonpost - "This news release was issued in regard to the bill that the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions passed last week revamping NCLB. The bill reduces the federal role in public education that has become so prominent in the NCLB era, and it eliminates a key accountability provision of the law that wound up declaring thousands of schools failing, even when they weren’t. It turns back to the states the right to create their own accountability systems for schools, a move opposed by the Obama administration — and, apparently, leading businessmen. . . . Here’s the statement, which shows that the coalition doesn’t think the bill is tough enough:"

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

343. 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. Politics K-12: Senate ESEA Draft Bill Would Scrap Adequate Yearly Progress, by Alyson Klein - http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2011/10/senate_esea_draft_bill_would_s.html via @educationweek - "The measure, which is already being decried by civil rights groups as a giant step backwards when it comes to accountability for poor and minority children, would scrap the 10-year-old law's signature yardstick, known as Adequate Yearly Progress or AYP. Instead, states would have to ensure that all students are making "continuous improvement" in student outcomes. . . . The draft would keep in place the law's requirement that states continue to report information on specific subgroups of students. And the law's testing schedule for reading and math—grades 3 through 8 and once in high school—would remain the same."

3. Bills Show Dueling Priorities on K-12 Spending, by Alyson Klein - http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/10/12/07spending.h31.html via @educationweek - "Both bills strive to keep the maximum Pell Grant at $5,500. The Senate bill would do that by making changes to the Federal Stafford Student Loan Program. The bill before the House committee, by contrast, would make significant changes to the program’s eligibility requirements, according to a New America Foundation analysis. For instance, students who attend college less than part time would no longer be eligible for Pell Grants. And students would be able to take part in the program for only a maximum of 12 semesters, down from 18 now. In addition, the maximum family income that would automatically qualify a student for the biggest Pell Grant would be cut in half, to $15,000, from $30,000."

4. Bill Would Overhaul No Child Left Behind, by Sam Dillon - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/education/12educ.html?_r=1&hpw -"But for about 9 of every 10 American schools, it would scrap the law’s federal system of accountability, under which schools must raise the proportion of students showing proficiency on the tests each year. That system has driven classroom teaching across the nation for a decade."

5. Alumni Tutoring Effort Strives to Raise Diversity at Elite Public Schools, by Anna M. Phillips - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/nyregion/graduates-of-elite-new-york-city-public-schools-tutor-students-seeking-admission.html?src=recg - "For more than a decade, the number of black and Hispanic students scoring high enough to be offered a seat at the city’s specialized high schools has been on the decline. Last February, just 12 black and 13 Hispanic students were admitted to Stuyvesant High School, which had 3,287 students."

6. Pressure and Lack of Repercussions Are Cited in SAT Cheating - http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2011/10/12/pressure-and-lack-of-repercussions-are-cited-in-sat-cheating via Schoolbook - "Some teenagers believe that student integrity keeps cheating rates close to zero, while others say illegal score boosting is the norm. “After [students] are done with a section, they share answers in the bathrooms,” a Stuyvesant High School senior, Ahlam Rafita, said. “If the person is really good at math, they’ll finish it and can easily switch back to the reading sections.”

7. Poor kids still lose race despite better scores, by Jay Mathews - Class Struggle - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/class-struggle/post/poor-kids-still-lose-race-despite-better-scores/2011/10/08/gIQAN9qTeL_blog.html?tid=sm_btn_twitter via Washingtonpost.com - “We find that although low-income students have shown strong gains in the indicators that lead to admission to highly selective schools . . . higher income students have simultaneously made even stronger gains on these same indicators,” they say in their paper “Running in Place: Low-Income Students and the Dynamics of Higher Education Stratification” in the September issue of the journal Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis."

8. NCLB bill: The problem with ‘continuous improvement,’ by Valerie Strauss - The Answer Sheet - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/nclb-bill-the-problem-with-continuous-improvement/2011/10/11/gIQA7nztdL_blog.html?tid=sm_btn_twitter via Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive - "Instead of requiring all students to be “proficient” in these basic skills by 2014 (as NCLB demands), or to be “college ready” by 2020 (as the Obama Administration proposes), the Harkin bill will require only that schools show “continuous improvement” for all students, and for students from low-income families, those who don’t speak English, minority students, and students with disabilities (see page 52 of the draft bill)."

336. 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. AT WHAT COST: Pursuing athletic scholarships is expensive for families http://t.co/OhNiGNTc via @reviewjournal - "It doesn't pay for most families chasing the dream of an athletic scholarship. . . . "I marvel at the money parents spend over the years in the pursuit of athletic scholarships," says Beth Walker, a former college volleyball player at Kansas and now owner of College Funding Coaches. . . . "For most athletes, if they can get even 25 percent of their tuition paid, that's huge. But many of these families are sure they have the next Division I superstar and there are full scholarships coming. I don't know what they're smoking. They're not coming from a place of reality. It's scary."

2. Long Island SAT Fraud Prompts Wider Investigations, by Rebecca R. Ruiz - http://nyti.ms/rrmgXy - "When the Educational Testing Service, the company that administers the test, detects irregularities, it simply notifies the affected students that their scores are being withdrawn. Neither colleges nor high schools are ever alerted that cheating was suspected.
That happens about .04 percent of the time, Ms. Anderson reports, with about 1,000 scores being withdrawn each year out of 2.25 million. Nearly all of those withdrawals – 99 percent of them – are due to one test-taker having copied off of another."

3. Public Schools Also Lose When Online Students Fail, by Burt Hubbard and Nancy Mitchell - http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/10/03/06enc_online.h31.html via @educationweek - "Colorado taxpayers will spend $100 million this year on online schools that are largely failing their elementary and high school students, state education records and interviews with school officials show. The money includes millions in tax dollars that are going to K-12 online schools for students who are no longer there."

4. Are Top Students Getting Short Shrift? - Room for Debate - http://nyti.ms/oSu0fj -"By trying to teach children of varying abilities in one classroom, is American society underdeveloping some of its brightest young people?"

5. In Classrooms, the Ideal vs. the Reality, by C. Kent McGuire - Room for Debate - http://nyti.ms/n8bpom - "The central challenge for American schools is to produce much higher levels of achievement for the vast majority of students. National attention to new Common Core Standards and to 21st Century Skills is based on this challenge. The policy debate we need to have is about how to accomplish this."

6. Latinos Need More Support to Raise Lagging Graduation Rates, Report Says, by Lacey Johnson - http://chronicle.com/article/Latinos-Need-More-Support-to/129247/ - "The study, conducted in 2009, found that only 19.2 percent of Latinos between the ages of 25 and 34 had earned a two- or four-year degree, compared with 41 percent nationally. To increase Latino college completion, policy makers and educators must, among other steps, improve middle- and high-school counseling, make preschool more available to low-income families, provide additional need-based grant money, and simplify the financial-aid system, the report says."

7. Two bitter education rivals begin to bury the hatchet, by Greg Toppo - http://usat.ly/o3HTwG via @usatoday - "We believe you cannot ignore poverty. We just believe right now the reason we have this problem is we're sending kids who face all these extra challenges into the same setup -- not even, because the kids in the more resourced communities have stronger schools, so we're sending them into a lesser version of the same setup that we send kids with many more privileges into, and that is why we have the achievement gap."

8. Online textbooks moving into schools, by Emma Brown - http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/online-textbooks-moving-into-schools/2011/09/27/gIQAwn0KGL_story.html via Washingtonpost.com -"Starting this fall, almost all Fairfax middle and high school students began using online books in social studies, jettisoning the tomes that have weighed down backpacks for decades. It is the Washington area’s most extensive foray into online textbooks, putting Fairfax at the leading edge of a digital movement that publishers and educators say inevitably will sweep schools nationwide."

9. Best Bang For Your Buck Colleges: Unigo List - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/03/bang-for-your-buck-colleges-unigo_n_991943.html - "Want a great education but don't want to accrue tremendous debt to get it? Well, you are in luck. College information site Unigo recently named the colleges that are the best "bang for your buck" --vi.e. colleges that are relatively inexpensive that provide a first-class education."

10. Read The Joe Rottenborn Daily ▸ today's top stories on college access and success via @rottenbornj ▸ http://paper.li/rottenbornj

335. 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. Educators, Financial Literacy Advocates Respond to Growing Student Debt - Southern Maryland Headline News: http://t.co/OxtpdgLD via @AddThis

3. Dream Act: Brown's Nightmare? NBC Los Angeles - http://t.co/sxRw2Zkz via @propzero

4. Test scores reveal Ky. educational challenges - http://www.kentucky.com/2011/09/29/1901496/test-scores-reveal-ky-educational.html

5. Why Achievement Gap Mania Isn’t Cost-Free - http://bit.ly/oR1O90

6. Better Literacy Will Close the Achievement Gap @PolicyMic Matthew Clair - http://www.policymic.com/articles/better-literacy-will-close-the-achievement-gap

7. Dispelling myths about college admissions - NeXt - The Buffalo News - http://t.co/b3KUfGi2 via @TheBuffaloNews

8. SAT Cheaters: College Admissions Exam Has History of Fraud - http://t.co/1toTvo1O via @thedailybeast

9. SAT cheating scandal: Are stakes getting too high for college admission? - Yahoo! News - http://t.co/Oq3XxVzr via @YahooNews

334. 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. 7 arrested in alleged SAT cheating scam, by Brad Lendon – This Just In - http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/28/7-arrested-in-alleged-sat-cheating-scam/ via @cnn -"Prosecutors allege Eshaghoff impersonated six Great Neck North High students between 2010 and 2011, charging between $1,500 and $2,500 to take the SAT test for them. Eshaghoff would take the test at schools other than Great Neck, where proctors would not be familiar with the students' identity, and present fake, unofficial identification, prosecutors say."

2. More financial help for NCAA athletes on the way, by Steve Wieberg – http://usat.ly/nHjyfJ via USAToday - "A committee weighing a number of potential changes is expected to recommend that the value of individual scholarships be raised by as much as $2,000 in the top-tier Division I, moving them closer to covering the athletes' full cost of attending school. Full grants currently cover only room, board, books and tuition. The NCAA's Division I board of directors would act on the proposal when it meets Oct. 26 and 27 in Indianapolis."

3. YSU, faculty reach deal, by Virginia Shank - Tribune Chronicle - Warren, OH: http://bit.ly/qvYc6Y via @AddThis - "The two sides issued the joint statement after meeting Wednesday morning that explains they resolved the remaining provisions in the proposed contract. Union leaders said the proposal is a revision of the "best and final" offer administrators made last month that the faculty ultimately rejected. YSU-OEA and the YSU Board of Trustees are planning to review and vote on ratification of the tentative agreement early next week. They said details of the agreement would not be released until after the votes."

4. At Seton Hall, Sharp Cuts in Tuition for Those With Good Grades and SATs, by Jacques Steinberg: http://nyti.ms/qtODVZ - "How would one qualify for this discount, which Mr. Perez-Pena describes as equal to about two-thirds of this year’s $31,440 tuition? (Room, board and other fees add about $13,000, for a total annual bill of nearly $42,000.) Writes Mr. Perez-Pena:Students must graduate in the top 10 percent of their high school classes and have a combined score of at least 1,200 on their math and reading SATs — but no less than 550 on each — or an ACT score of 27. Mr. Perez-Pena says that the experts on admissions and financial aid whom he consulted “knew of no other college providing such a blanket discount for top-flight students.”

5. Going Off on Online Rankings, by Paul Fain - Inside Higher Ed - http://bit.ly/qkJb76 via @AddThis - "The publication is analyzing six types of online academic programs for the new rankings: baccalaureate degree programs and master’s degrees in business, computer information technology, education, engineering and nursing. Both for-profits and nonprofits with substantial online offerings, like UMassOnline and the University of Maryland University College, were asked to participate. (To be eligible, programs need to have coursework that is collectively at least 80 percent online, according to a web presentation by U.S. News officials.)"

6. Dump the Slump, by Allie Grasgreen - Inside Higher Ed - http://bit.ly/qMGfV2 via @AddThis - “The sophomore year is a time of transition, where students sometimes do feel like they’re in a slump. They’re not yet necessarily deeply on their track toward whatever their path is, but they’re no longer in that special moment of being the first-year class whom everybody dotes on,” said Stephen Nowicki, dean and vice provost for undergraduate education at Duke."

7. Academic Performance and the BCS, by John V. Lombardi, Elizabeth D. Capaldi, and Craig W. Abbey - Inside Higher Ed - http://bit.ly/o2zBdW - "It will come as no real surprise to those who watch our academic landscape to discover that the Big 10 leads the field with an academic distinction index of 55, followed closely by the Pac-12 with 48. The ACC falls some distance behind with an index of 28.5 and the SEC a significant distance away at 14, followed closely by the Big-Twelve and the Big East at 12. As a reference, we also constructed an index for the Ivy League, to put all this into perspective. This premier academic conference would fall into second place, after the Big-10 and before the Pac-12."

8. The Man Behind the Controversial College Rankings, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://moneywatch.bnet.com/spending/blog/college-solution/the-man-behind-the-controversial-college-rankings/6761/ via @cbsmoneywatch - "What you probably don’t know, however, is who is responsible for the rankings’ controversial methodology. The person behind the college rankings is Robert Morse, who is US News’ director of data research. At the annual conference of the National Association for College Admission Counseling last week in New Orleans, I interviewed Morse about his rankings baby. Here’s what he had to say."

9. Politics K-12: Roadmap to Winning an NCLB Waiver, by Michele McNeil - http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2011/09/_overall_instructions_a_plan.html via @educationweek - "Then, the peer reviewers will drill down and focus on the three main commitments states have to make to get more freedom under NCLB. On adopting college and career ready standards: Judges will ask: Is there a plan to provide professional development to teachers and principals? . . . On adopting guidelines to improve teacher and principal effectiveness: Is student growth a significant enough part of the new evaluation system to differentiate among teachers who have made "significantly different contributions" (emphasis added) to student growth or closing achievement gaps?"

10. Politics K-12: Obama to Nation's Students: Aim for College, and Innovate, by Alyson Klein - http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2011/09/obama_to_nations_students_aim.html via @educationweek - "This year's remarks were pretty innocuous. They focused on urging students to push themselves academically and set high goals, namely pursuing education or postsecondary training after high school, and finishing those studies. "If that means college for you, just getting into college isn't enough," Obama said. "You've got to graduate. ... Our country used to have the world's highest proportion of of young people with a college degree. We now rank 16th. That's not good enough. We need your generation to bring us back to the top."

11. Hispanic Children in Poverty Exceed Whites, Study Finds, by Sabrina Tavernise - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/29/us/hispanic-children-in-poverty-surpass-whites-study-finds.html?src=rechp - "While the number of Hispanic children in poverty is the highest ever, the poverty rate — 35 percent in 2010 — is well under its 1994 peak of 41 percent. Nor do Hispanics have the largest share in poverty of all racial and ethnic groups. In 2010, 39.1 percent of black children — 4.3 million — lived in poverty, as did 12.4 percent of white children. . . . And Hispanic children in poverty are more likely to live in married couple families than either non-Hispanic whites or African-Americans, according to the report, a pattern that can help cushion an economic fall. Forty-six percent of Hispanic children lived in married couple families in 2010, compared with 41 percent of whites and 16 percent of African-Americans."

12. Coming Together to Dismantle Education Reform, by Andrew J. Rotherham - http://ti.me/mPIiso via @TIME - "As evidence of the severe disconnect between the state's high standards on paper and lax enforcement in practice, consider that 98% of schools in Virginia — a state system I know well, since I served as a member of its board of education for four years — are fully accredited under the state's rules. But just 22% of the Hispanic students and 14% of the African-American students who attend these schools are reading at the "proficient" level on the National Assessment of Education Progress by eighth grade. Hard to square that with a 98% success rate."

281. 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 via @rottenbornj ▸ http://t.co/UftEiOc

2. Why you want to go to college: In 140 characters or less, by Luke Kerr-Dineen and Natalie DiBlasio - http://usat.ly/qOERgx via @USATODAY - "At the University of Iowa, a good tweet is worth $37,000. That's the price of a full scholarship, and that's exactly what a student hopeful can win in a contest the university has dreamed up that takes electronic communication to a new level. The university is asking prospective students to submit a 140-character tweet in place of a second essay."

3. AFT teachers union to defend educators in cheating scandals, by Greg Toppo - http://usat.ly/nyANPN via @USATODAY - "Weingarten noted that local union affiliates in Atlanta and elsewhere have been among the first to ferret out cheating among their ranks.In Atlanta, the union in 2005 "blew the whistle on this, and it was ignored because there was this enormous pressure to meet (testing) targets," she said. "Targets became more important than learning and a climate, as the governor said, that was intimidating and that was fearful and that was retailiating against anyone who came forward."

4. Colleges replacing loans with no-pay grants for their neediest students, by Daniel de Vise - http://t.co/vqM8MXh via @washingtonpost - “They’re essentially chasing after the same group of low-income students who are academically talented,” said Mark Kantrowitz, an industry expert who is tracking 73 colleges that have eliminated or capped student loans. “If you get in, these schools are a great deal.”

5. The 12 best college financial aid policies - College, Inc., by Daniel de Vise - http://t.co/66dHIwK via @washingtonpost - "In today’s paper, I write about the trend toward “no-loan” financial aid pledges at some of the nation’s top universities. More than 70 schools have replaced loans with grants in at least some of their aid awards, focusing on the neediest students.I resisted the temptation, in that story, to rattle off a list of the schools with the best aid policies. So, why not do it here?"

6. Financial Aid Pledges to Reduce Student Debt (2009-10), The Project on Student Debt - http://projectonstudentdebt.org/pc_institution.php - "A number of colleges have developed financial aid policies that limit or eliminate student loans from financial aid packages, reducing costs for students and families. We have analyzed each of these programs and include information here for the programs that meet our guidelines."

7. Preparing for college with a learning disability - Campus Overload, by Meghan Benzel - http://t.co/VUpOrWy via @washingtonpost - "I am a non-visual learner, and I have AD/HD and components of Asperger’s Syndrome. For those of you preparing for college with a learning disability: I understand. I’ve been there."

8. The PREPPIEST Schools Of 2011, by Lindsay Dittman - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/11/the-preppiest-schools-of-_n_894320.html#s305674&title=University_Of_Virginia - Which university in Ohio made this list?

9. Education Needs to Break With Tradition - Room for Debate: How to Improve Summer School - http://nyti.ms/nMFuzw - ". . . Is there a way to make summer school more cost effective or, with tight budgets, does it make sense to cut them? What are the best methods for making sure students are learning what they need to learn in the summer and not losing ground?"

10. How to Save on College Tuition, by Princess Clark-Wendel -http://t.co/dgO4nrq via @foxbusiness - "At a time when many families are strapped for cash, the cost of college tuition is steadily climbing. New research shows that the median income in the United States has held steady around $33,000 since 1998 while college tuition has more than doubled.Here are nine ways to help cover the cost of tuition."

11. Hechinger Report Two years after Obama’s college graduation initiative, major obstacles remain, by Jon Marcus: http://bit.ly/pbgf3C - "Only one in five of those who enroll in community colleges—and, in some states, barely one in 10—graduates in three years, while only about half of students who go to universities get their bachelor’s degrees within six. That has helped to push the United States from first to 10th in the world in the proportion of the population that has graduated from college, threatening to make this generation of college-age Americans the first to be less well-educated than their parents."

279. 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. A Nudge for the Neediest, by Libby A. Nelson - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/orO8tv - "Wisconsin Scholars Grant recipients were no more likely to persist in college than were students who received Pell Grants alone, and on average, they did not complete more college credits than did students who did not receive the grant."

2. Courting Valedictorians, by David Moltz - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/nW45e8 - "Ivy Tech Community College announced last month that it was awarding every high school valedictorian in Indiana a scholarship valued at 15 credit hours, or about $1,500. Officials at the 24-campus community college system know better than to think they'll lure all 373 of these high-performing students away from four-year institutions with such a modest merit award. They merely hope the students will pass through to pick up some spare credits to transfer along their route to a baccalaureate degree, and that their presence will help promote the state’s two-year colleges to more households."

3. Unlocking the Gate: What We Know About Improving Developmental Education, by Elizabeth Zachry Rutschow &Emily Schneider - http://www.mdrc.org/publications/601/execsum.pdf - "Enrolling over one-third of all postsecondary education students, community colleges have become a centerpiece of America’s efforts in recent years to improve the quality of its workforce and maintain its competitiveness in the global market. However, community colleges have often struggled to graduate their students, with just over three in ten community college students earning a degree or credential within six years of first enrolling. Over half of thesestudents are academically underprepared for college-level work, and improving the success of these developmental, or remedial, students is one of the greatest challenges that community colleges face in the efforts to increase overall graduation rates –– very few of these students end up completing their required sequence of developmental coursework needed to enroll in college-level courses, let alone graduating from college with a diploma or certificate."

4. The 25 Cheapest Universities: Are They a Bargain? by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://t.co/rS5bCe2 via @cbsmoneywatch - "Are these schools, however, really inexpensive? Before you decide, here are the 25 cheapest schools, based on net prices, among all four-year state universities in the United States."

5. Education Week: Advocates See Pre-K-3 as Key Early Education Focus, by Sarah Garland - http://t.co/6ZG61eH via @educationweek - "Among the revelations, the kindergarten teachers told the preschool teachers that their 5-year-olds, many of them immigrants, struggled with stories covered in the kindergarten reading curriculum. They weren’t hearing English-language classics like “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” or “Humpty Dumpty” at home. So the preschools began incorporating those stories into their curricula, to help better prepare their students."

6. Students Least Likely to Persist Benefit Most From Extra Financial Aid, Study Finds, by Beckie Supiano - http://chronicle.com/article/Students-Least-Likely-to/128159/ - "When the researchers considered students' expected persistence, they saw that receiving the additional grant did make a difference. For example, 72 percent of students who were least likely to persist and received the grant were still in college three years into the program, compared with 55 percent of students who were least likely to persist and did not receive the money.The students most likely to persist had a very different experience, however: Seventy-nine percent of grant recipients in this group were still in college three years later, compared with 94 percent of nonrecipients."

7. Shocking details of Atlanta cheating scandal, by Valerie Strauss - The Answer Sheet - http://t.co/Jz4Ixr3 via @washingtonpost - "I found a copy of the report on this Web site of CBS Atlanta affiliate. Here are some of the revelations, taken directly from the report, which give you an idea of how the cheating was done:"

8. The MOST RADICAL Colleges, by Lindsay Dittman - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/07/the-most-radical-colleges_n_892463.html#s304228&title=Occidental_College - "From ultraliberal hippie dippie environmentalists to uber-conservative religious squares, we bring you the students that are canceling school to lead pro-life marches or shutting down a speaker for the Israeli PR campaign. The ones well-acquainted with social and political activism. Whether they live by a strict moral code or no code at all, these students are radical."

9. College grads’ salary offers up 4.8%, by Francine Knowles - Chicago Sun-Times: http://bit.ly/nYmMaL - "The average starting salary offer to the Class of 2011 rose 4.8 percent to $51,018, compared with offers extended to the Class of 2010, according to the latest survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers released Wednesday.The increases overall are a good indication that the job market for new college graduates is gaining strength, according to Marilyn Mackes, the association’s executive director. Still, salaries lag previous increases. In fall 2008, the average salary offer increase was 7.6 percent higher than in 2007."

10. Ohio to begin ranking all schools from best to worst, by Catherine Candisky - http://t.co/PjJzYn6 via @vindicator - "Starting next year, Ohio’s 3,500 public schools will be ranked best to worst in annual reports issued by the state.The lists will show parents and others how schools — traditional, charter and vocational — stack up based on student performance, per-pupil expenditures, percent of funding spent on classroom expenditures and other measures.The recently passed state budget included a provision requiring the Ohio Department of Education to issue annual school performance and expenditure reports. The first ones should come out in 2012."

278. 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. The changing face of America's youth, by John D. Sutter - #cnn http://t.co/fgXh3Qp - "For the first time in national history, the majority of young people in two states -- California and New Mexico -- now identify as Hispanic, according to census data released this year.In eight additional states -- Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, Maryland and Hawaii -- white children are in the minority compared with peers from other racial and ethnic groups combined, according to data analyzed by William Frey at the Brookings Institution."

2. When a Part-Time Job Is Your Extracurricular Activity, By Lily Altavena - http://nyti.ms/oKPWW1 - "Similarly, Ann McDermott, the director of admissions for the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, said that she looked favorably on any summer job, especially when there was a financial need.“I applaud any student who is either helping themselves or helping their family,” she said. “You do still need to pay attention to the bottom line, and that is a dollar amount.”

3. E-phemeral E-Books, by Steve Kolowich - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/q4Q7bw - "At a time when many customers are making decisions with one hand on their wallets, academic presses are looking to stoke interest in their electronic versions by offering digital rentals for a reduced price. For example, instead of buying a paperback or e-book for $20 at the Stanford University Press website, students and scholars can pay $5 to access an e-book for 14 days, or $10 for 60 days."

4. 25 Colleges With the Highest Hidden Price Tags, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy -http://t.co/9DYYdTg via @cbsmoneywatch - "When my friend Betsy asked me for advice a few months ago, I told her that Alex should stay away from art schools and apply to regular colleges and universities that offer art degrees instead.Why? Many art schools, as well as schools of music, are extremely expensive, but their financial aid packages are often laughable."

5. District Dossier: Investigators Offer a Look Inside Atlanta's Cheating Scandal, by Christina Samuels - http://t.co/zAKt2z3 - "The conclusion in the report is scathing and unequivocal: "Without question, cheating occurred in [Atlanta Public Schools] on the CRCT in 2009 and previous years. The erasure analysis is no longer a mere red flag, but is supported by confessions and other evidence of cheating in 78.6 percent of the elementary and middle schools we investigated."

6. The 10 Most Expensive Public Business Schools For In-State Students, by Lindsay Dittman - http://huff.to/mS3Gdg - "Though all ten business schools are good (all ten made it into the top 40 best business schools rankings and seven made it into the top 25), the prices are still astronomically high (and figures don’t even include room and board, books, and other miscellaneous costs). The survey noted that four of the ten schools charged state resident more than $40,000 for the school year."

7. The NERDIEST Colleges, by Lindsay Dittman - http://huff.to/rjkYOL - "Modern nerds fit into a more important category: people that pursue what they want with all their heart. They confidently participate in what they love, even if what they love is totally bizarre. They're the future Nobel Laureates, astronauts and engineers, but also the champions of bygone eras, the lovers of mustaches, bike-jousting and campus-wide Rube Goldberg machines."

8. How Can I Find the Right Extracurricular Activities for Me? - College Admissions Q&As (usnews.com) - http://t.co/TbkooLK - "It's no secret that colleges are seeking students who involve themselves with activities outside the classroom. Sports, community service, and student organizations are all great ways to supplement a strong GPA. However, some students often find it challenging to identify an activity they're passionate about. Tami G. from Pine Bluff, Ark., wants to know how that specific scenario could impact her college application and if there are other ways to find groups she might find exciting."

9. Is the White House Committed to Addressing the Role Poverty Plays in the Achievement Gap? by Liz Dwyer - http://su.pr/2GPNL2 (@GOOD stuff) - "More money is coming to the U.S. Department of Education's year-old Promise Neighborhoods program. Modeled after Geoffrey Canada's successful Harlem Children's Zone (HCZ) initiative, the Promise Neighborhoods program awarded $10 million in 2010 to 21 mostly nonprofit and higher education-based applicants . . . . In comparison, over the past year and a half, the Obama Administration has put more than $4 billion toward its Race to the Top (RTTT) competition, making it the single-largest discretionary program in the history of the USDOE."

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."