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Showing posts with label film. Show all posts
Showing posts with label film. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

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."


Thursday, February 3, 2011

184. MVCAP fyi

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

1. How federal spending cuts trickle down to you, by Charles Riley - http://t.co/G8Pf7VK via @CNNMoney

"Take, for example, the Department of Education. It made $36 billion in grants and other payments to states in fiscal year 2008 -- before the Recovery Act kicked in -- according to the Census Bureau. . . . Once the funds make their way from the Education Department to state and local governments, they are used to fund special education, vocational, English language acquisition and adult literacy programs."

2. High Enrollers, by Steve Holowich - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/hpanE4

"In fall 2009, during one of the most devastating years of the current financial crisis, 7.1 percent more students enrolled in college than had the previous fall, according to data released Wednesday by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). And while all types of institutions -- public, private nonprofit, and private for-profit -- saw a bump, for-profit institutions easily outpaced the other sectors, growing their rolls by nearly 25 percent and their revenues by 21 percent, the federal study found."

3. Slip-Sliding Away: An Anxious Public Talks about Today's Economy and the American Dream - http://j.mp/gJnRS0

"Not surprisingly, the struggling are dramatically more worried about their financial well-being. Fully 77 percent of the struggling who are also parents say they're "very worried" about paying for their child's college education."

4. Honesty on Application Essays, by Scott Anderson - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/egYvh9

"When I received Dean Blackburn’s invitation to join the university’s first-year class, what I could not see was the unwritten acknowledgment hidden between the lines of his gracious welcome: I was admitted in spite of my writing, not because of it."

5. Pathways To Prosperity Report: Students Need More Paths To Career Success - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/02/pathways-to-prosperity-re_n_817374.html

‎"What I fear is the continuing problem of too many kids dropping by the wayside and the other problem of kids going into debt, and going into college but not completing with a degree or certificate," said Robert Schwartz, who heads the project and is academic dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education."


"Below, check out the top five colleges and universities in the large, medium and small categories, and see how many of their grads are currently serving. The Peace Corps (PDF) has additional rankings. Did your school make the cut? Let us know in the comments section."

7. 25 Universities With the Worst Graduation Rates, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://t.co/5M61cEC

"I’d argue that what these schools do excel at is producing students who end up leaving college with no degree, but lots of student debt and that’s disgraceful."

8. One College Applicant Puts Her Testing Gripes On Film, by Eric Hoover: http://chronicle.com/blogs/headcount/one-college-applicant-puts-her-testing-gripes-on-film/27821

"Mr. Kauffmann says he and his daughter hope the film will convince students and parents that admissions entrance exams are “unfair, biased, and illogical.” To that end, the Kauffmanns have started an online petition urging colleges to stop using the ACT and SAT."

9. What the NFL Can Teach Teachers, by Andrew J. Rotherham - reading from @time Super Bowl School: http://bit.ly/glOXDo

"We evaluate everything. When we start training camp, we watch every practice with the players, and at the end of the day, we give a numeric grade to each player, so two practices a day means two grades. During the regular season, we don't grade practice but grade every play of every game. We grade on technique, and we grade on production. Players have each other's grades in front of them as we go through this."

10. 8 subtle ways to prepare middle schoolers for college, by Jay Mathews - http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2011/02/8_sneaky_ways_to_ready_middle.html

‎"I have asked several college admissions and education experts about positive steps that middle-school parents can take. Some of the ideas don’t sound like college prep at all, but they are. If you help a preteen get ready for life, there will be some preparation for college in there somewhere. Here are eight suggestions:"