393. 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. Early Line on Early Admissions: http://nyti.ms/swWdAH - "High school seniors who applied to early admission programs can find an early tally providing some context for this year's process."

3. Colleges are watching applicants' online trails - http://kansascity.com/: http://bit.ly/u07ZEq via AddThis - Watch what you post!

4. New Report Analyzes Nation's Progress in Meeting College Graduation Goals: http://bit.ly/vitc5v via AddThis - "To help the nation achieve its educational goals, CollegeBoard.org recently issued a report to assess the current state of the nation's college graduates."

5. Low-income quota eyed for St. Paul schools http://t.co/wy2UiQMB http://www.startribune.com/local/stpaul/135900333.html

6. Malloy unveils education reform ideas for Conn. http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2011/12/20/malloy_unveils_education_reform_ideas_for_conn via @BostonDotCom - "Connecticut lawmakers will be asked next year to allow more state intervention in troubled school districts, more autonomy for high-achieving schools, changes in teacher evaluation methods. . . ."

7. Build School Systems on a Solid Foundation http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/12/20/15westervelt.h31.html?cmp=SOC-SHR-TW via @educationweek - "Early-childhood education must promote opportunities for needy children, Gerrit Westervelt and Cassie Schwerner say."

8. Essay: Washington college grant program favors vocational over liberal education Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/sCAoaQ via AddThis - "Last year, as Washington State faced a severe budget crisis, legislators embraced a novel way to fund student financial aid: a public-private partnership between the state and private corporations. Called the Opportunity Scholarship Fund, the fund attracts private donations and matches them. . . ."

9. The Envelope, Please: Eight High School Seniors Blog Their College Searches: http://nyti.ms/vIviRa - "Eight students from four high schools -- one each in Atlanta; New York City; Minnetonka, Minn.; and Long Beach, Calif. -- invite readers of The Choice along on their college searches, via a first-person series called "The Envelope, Please."

10. Some Early Applicants Will Wait a Little Longer: http://nyti.ms/uzzRXu - "For early applicants to the University of Michigan and Lehigh University, there is a bit more waiting for admissions decisions this year."

11. Sniffing Out Financial Aid Awards, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://www.thecollegesolution.com/sniffing-out-financial-aid-awards#.TvFQmxlaRZ0.twitter via AddThis - "Parents and teenagers should not apply to colleges and universities before getting a good idea how much scholarships or grants a school would provide."

12. Measuring the Generosity of Colleges, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://www.thecollegesolution.com/measuring-the-generosity-of-colleges#.TvFQ1pbxwus.twitter via AddThis

13. The Best Way to Study for Final Exams, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://www.thecollegesolution.com/the-best-way-to-study-for-final-exams#.TvFRNc6A2qU.twitter via AddThis - "Research from Purdue and Washington University suggests the best way to study for final exams for high school and college students."

392. 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. Most bizarre essay questions - http://m.golocalprov.com/70548/show/7acfb5cb851c6ca4865138c70d1503a9/ - "According to the National Association for College Admissions Counseling (NACAC), the importance that colleges place on student essays has been steadily increasing. While the Common Application provides standard essay prompts, individual colleges often ask additional essay and short answer questions . . . ."

3. College Early Admission Is Tougher Than Ever http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/12/19/college-early-admission-is-tougher-than-ever.html via @thedailybeast - "This year’s early admission applicants had it tougher than ever, reports Steve Cohen."

4. Startup raises $2.5M to put college admissions on Apple's iPad http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2011/12/19/college-admissions-ipad-app-raises-25m.html?ana=twt via @BBJNewsroom

5. Your College Advisor - End-of-the-year checklist for high school seniors - http://northjersey.com/ http://shar.es/Wmcjm

6. Teen musician, 17, graduates from UWM - JSOnline http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/teen-musician-17-graduates-from-uwm-ll3g3or-135835833.html - And a guitarist, at that!

7. Sample College Admissions Essays on a Fictional Character http://collegeapps.about.com/b/2011/12/18/new-sample-college-admissions-essay-on-a-fictional-character.htm?r=twitter - "Common Application Sample Essay - An essay for option #4 on a fictional character"

8. Achievement gap among Seattle black students Education News - The News Tribune http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/12/19/1951412/achievement-gap-among-seattle.html via @thenewstribune - "A new look at test scores by Seattle Public Schools shows American-born black students lag behind black immigrants in academic achievement."

9. The Poverty of School Reform -- In These Times: http://bit.ly/vWbuHR via AddThis

10. The Financial Aid That You Didn't Know Existed http://www.educationfact.com/blog/financial-aid-didnt-existed/ - "A blog post offering information regarding the some of the often-overlooked financial aid options to investigate"

367. 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. 529 college savings plan a great gift, by Sandra Block – http://usat.ly/u0eHfQ via @USATODAY - "Saving for college has never been more important. Federal and state budget deficits could lead to cuts in traditional sources of financial aid, which means there's a good chance there won't be as much available when your child goes to college, says Joseph Hurley, founder of SavingforCollege.com. Meanwhile, tuition continues to increase much faster than the rate of inflation. Tuition and fees at public colleges and universities rose more than 8% this year, according to a recent report by the College Board."

3. Program helps prepare kids for kindergarten, by Bob Coupland - Tribune Chronicle - Warren, OH: http://bit.ly/vLsGOE via AddThis - "Called SPARK Ohio (Supporting Partnerships to Assure Ready Kids), the program works with families, schools and the community to ensure children's readiness and schools' readiness to receive children and families, according to its website. . . . The program is designed to help 4-year-olds increase communication, language, literacy and math skills."

4. Part 2: Answers to Your Questions on Scholarships and Student Loans, by Mark Kantrowitz: http://nyti.ms/tcJAdo - "The unsubsidized Stafford loan and the Parent PLUS loan, both federal education loans, are available without regard to financial need. Even wealthy families may qualify for these loans. The Stafford loan is a student loan while the Parent PLUS loan is, as the name suggests, a loan borrowed by parents of undergraduate students. The unsubsidized Stafford loan has a fixed 6.8 percent interest rate and the Parent PLUS loan has a fixed 7.9 percent interest rate."

5. Occupy protests focusing increasingly on student debt, by Libby A. Nelson Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/vXcfBn via AddThis - “Student loan debt has been rising inexorably, and college students in the last couple of years are entering one of the worst job markets in a generation,” Kamenetz says. “There’s a real feeling of betrayal that hits a lot of people when they find out that the debt they were told was good debt is not paying off.”

6. Survey finds that counselors question effectiveness of schools, by Scott Jaschik Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/spuyVP via AddThis - "In function after function that the counselors found important -- such as helping students understand the kind of preparation they would need for colleges and careers, or promoting good understanding of the college application process -- relatively few found their schools to be doing well in them."

7. Report Links College to Promising 'Career Clusters' Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/tsmCx9 via AddThis - "The report argues that while there will be some jobs in the future for which only a high school diploma is required, those positions will be few and far between -- and will have limited advancement potential. The clusters in which students are likely to see the greatest number of jobs and advancement potential require a college education, the report says."

8. Georgetown U. Report on Career Clusters -- http://cew.georgetown.edu/clusters/ - "Here are several key highlights from the report:

While jobs for workers with high school diplomas are in decline, they still exist.

Jobs for middle skill workers (jobs for workers with some college, a certificate, or an Associate's degree) will make up 29 percent of the workforce by 2018.

Manufacturing will continue to decline in total employment, but retiring Baby Boomers will create 2 million job openings.

The gender gap in wages varies greatly from cluster to cluster. For example, the gap in Architecture and Construction is $2,000; in Health Science, it is $69,000."

9. Counselors See Conflicts in Carrying Out Mission, by Catherine Gewertz - http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/11/15/13counseling.h31.html?cmp=SOC-SHR-TW via @educationweek - "Nine in 10 counselors, for instance, said that two objectives should top their schools’ priority lists: ensuring that all students have access to high-quality education and that they graduate well-equipped for college and careers. But fewer than four in 10 said their schools actually operated as if those goals were central to their mission."

10. Bachelor's Degree Is Still Best Path to Middle-Class Jobs and Earnings, Report Says, by Jennifer Gonzalez - http://chronicle.com/article/Bachelors-Degree-Is-Still/129784/ - "The study also concludes that women need education beyond high school to earn the same wages as men with only a high-school diploma. For example, a man can earn $35,000 annually with a high-school diploma in the manufacturing sector, while a woman must obtain a postsecondary credential and work in health care to earn as much, the report concludes. "A woman just can't make it with only a high-school diploma," said Anthony P. Carnevale, a research professor at Georgetown who directs the Center on Education and the Workforce."

11. Research doesn’t back up key ed reforms, by Valerie Strauss - The Answer Sheet - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/research-doesnt-back-up-key-ed-reforms/2011/11/12/gIQAPRoWFN_blog.html?tid=sm_btn_twitter via @washingtonpost - "There is no solid evidence supporting many of the positions on teachers and teacher evaluation taken by some school reformers today, according to a new assessment of research on the subject. The Education Writers Association released a new brief that draws on more than 40 research studies or research syntheses, as well as interviews with scholars who work in this field."

366. 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 on http://paper.li/rottenbornj

2. SAT Essay Question Proves Prescient, Jacques Steinberg: http://nyti.ms/tiKkNa - "The test-takers were then asked to answer a question — “Is it often difficult for people to determine what is the right thing to do?” — and directed to use “examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.”

3. Seeking Your Questions on Scholarships and Student Loans, by Jacques Steinberg: http://nyti.ms/rwHDtl - "I’ve once again asked Mark Kantrowitz, a financial aid expert and founder of the Web sites finaid.org and fastweb.com, to spend a week in our virtual Guidance Office."

4. Latest Developments on Penn State Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/v6k4eS via AddThis - "For those seeking perspective on how the Penn State scandal compares to other major athletics scandals, Slate has assembled links to some of the better long-form journalism on such scandals in the past, as well as some more recent coverage."

5. HechingerEd Blog The new G.I. Bill: Big money, big challenges [podcast]: http://bit.ly/rDEFfU via AddThis - "In September, Hechinger Report writer Jon Marcus reported for The Washington Post that universities were heavily recruiting veterans to get a piece of the $11 billion made available through the new post-9/11 G.I. Bill, but providing little of the additional support that many veterans say they need."

6. Why Do Top Schools Still Take Legacy Applicants? http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/11/13/why-do-top-schools-still-take-legacy-applicants via @roomfordebate - "A recent article in The Times about the pressure felt by Ivy League alumni to get their children into their alma maters — and by those children to get into their parents’ colleges — demonstrated that legacy preferences are still a big part of the admissions process at top schools."

7. Affirmative Action for the Rich, by Richard D. Kahlenberg - http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/11/13/why-do-top-schools-still-take-legacy-applicants/affirmative-action-for-the-rich via @roomfordebate -"Legacy preferences provide the equivalent of a 160 point boost on the math and verbal SATs, not the “tiebreaker” that many universities claim. These preferences disproportionately benefit wealthy white students, providing, in essence, affirmative action for the rich."

8. How Do You Define Merit? Debra J. Thomas and Terry L. Shepard - http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/11/13/why-do-top-schools-still-take-legacy-applicants/humans-cant-be-ranked-by-merit via @roomfordebate - "Fewer than 100 of the nation's 3,500 colleges and universities -- less than 3 percent -- have so many qualified applicants that they have to choose among them. At this handful of institutions, legacies are only a small fraction of the candidates. Of these few legacies, not all are admitted, and many that are would have been accepted anyway."

9. Bad for Diversity, by John C. Brittain - http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/11/13/why-do-top-schools-still-take-legacy-applicants/legacy-preferences-are-bad-for-campus-diversity via @roomfordebate - "A study conducted by researchers at Duke University in 2005 found that underrepresented minorities constitute 28.2 percent of the U.S. population; 12.5 percent of the entire applicant pool of 18 national schools; but minority legacy applicants only accounted for 6.7 percent of the applicant pool. The researchers concluded that legacies today reflect the domination of whites that have in their words, “monopolized” higher education throughout history."

10. Respect for Tradition, by Stephen Joel Trachtenberg - Room for Debate
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/201...

- "More likely legacy admissions are a small number of a large group of set-asides, of special categories crafted and blended into a tapestry of talent that make up an incoming class: legacies, yes, but also musicians, athletes, veterans, minorities, students from all regions of the country and nations of the world, along with those who wish to study rare languages or STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics)."

11. Hard-Core Economics, by Peter Sacks - http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/11/13/why-do-top-schools-still-take-legacy-applicants/hard-core-economics via @roomfordebate - "Elite institutions have struck an implicit bargain with their alumni. That bargain essentially says, “You give us money, and we will move your kid to the front of the line.” . . . The whole enterprise is brought to you by the generosity of ordinary American taxpayers, via tax breaks and subsidies. Their children are waiting patiently in the back of the line, buying into the myth that the system is fair and meritocratic, when in fact, the game is rigged, and the winners are pre-ordained."

12. Athletes Are the Problem, by Michele Hernandez - http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/11/13/why-do-top-schools-still-take-legacy-applicants/in-college-admissions-athletes-are-the-problem via @roomfordebate - "Like it or not, 40 percent of the class at most top colleges are reserved for "hooked" kids -- the largest group is generally recruited athletes (up to 20 percent), the rest are legacies, underrepresented minorities, development cases (donors) and V.I.P.'s (famous people's kids). It's hard for me to say legacy preferences are not fair because the truth is that the process isn't fair and legacies take up a relatively minor percentage of the class (typically 10 percent)."

13. Crime on Campus: Penn State Raises Question, Do Colleges Have Too Much Power? by Kayla Webley - http://ti.me/rZSq5p via TIME - "One of the few oversight tools the government has is the Clery Act. Named after a Lehigh University student who was raped and strangled by another student in 1986 in her dorm room, the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act requires all colleges and universities that participate in federal financial-aid programs to disclose each year the number of alleged criminal offenses, including sexual offenses, that are recorded on campus or in other areas that are under university control, such as remote classrooms and fraternity houses. In addition, schools must also issue timely warnings in cases in which the reported crime represents a threat to the campus community."

14. Proof there is no proof for education reforms, by Carol Corbett Burris- The Answer Sheet - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/proof-there-is-no-proof-for-education-reforms/2011/11/13/gIQAAeVWJN_blog.html?tid=sm_btn_twitter via @washingtonpost - "Jonah Rockoff of Columbia University, who consults with the New York State Education Department on VAM (value-added modeling) scores and teacher evaluation, recently made a presentation at the Nassau Boards of Cooperative Educational Services. He included a slide, far more modest in its claims, regarding effective teaching and the achievement gap.When I questioned him about it, he was quite honest and admitted that there exists no empirical proof that three effective teachers in a row would close the achievement gap. It is merely a hypothetical extension of results from a model. He also honestly admitted that there exists no study that demonstrates that evaluating teachers using student test scores results in gains in achievement."

353. 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. Obama to offer help for students buried in debt, by Jennifer Liberto - http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/25/news/economy/Obama_student_loan/ via CNNMoney.com - "One of the proposals would push up the start date for more favorable terms on a special loan repayment program based on income, said White House domestic policy adviser Melody Barnes. Another measure would encourage graduates with two or more different kinds of federal loans to consolidate them and get a small break on interest rates. . . . Average student loan debt for the graduating class of 2009 at four-year nonprofit colleges was $24,000, including all private and federal loans, according to the Institute for College Access & Success."

2. See how much debt college will really put you in, by Blake Ellis - http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/26/pf/college_financial_aid/ via @CNNMoney - "Figuring out how much college is going to cost you is about to get much easier.At least that's what the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Department of Education are hoping to do with a one-page "financial aid shopping sheet." The sheet will clearly break down the amount of aid a student will qualify for at a particular college, as well as how much debt they will end up with once they graduate."

3. College costs climb, yet again, by Kim Clark - http://money.cnn.com/2011/10/26/pf/college/college_tuition_cost/ via @CNNMoney - "The sticker price of studying and living on campus at the average public university rose 5.4% for in-state students, or about $1,100, to $21,447 this fall, the College Board estimated. . . . The sticker price of living and studying for a year at a typical private college rose 4.3% to $42,224 this year."

4. Tuition and fees rise more than 8% at U.S. public colleges, by Mary Beth Marklein – http://usat.ly/tL8dPk via @USATODAY - "That increase is more than double the inflation rate of 3.6% between July 2010 and July 2011. Family earnings dropped across all income levels. And state funding per student declined by 4% in 2010, the latest year available, and 23% over the past decade, the report says."

5. Obama proposes changes to student loan programs, by Libby A. Nelson Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/vkz5l3 via AddThis - "The majority of borrowers affected will be students who borrowed money under both the Federal Family Education Loan Program, when banks issued federal student loans and collected government subsidies, and the Direct Loan Program, under which the federal government lends money directly to students.The government began originating all loans through direct lending in 2010, when a provision to eliminate bank-based student lending was included in the administration’s health care overhaul. But many students who were enrolled at the time of the change have loans in both programs, meaning they make two payments."

6. Reports find student aid shift from states to federal government, by Kevin Kiley Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/tkwJXL via @AddThis - "Sandy Baum, a policy analyst for the College Board and co-author of the reports, said the federal government is stepping in to fill a financial void created by states' decreased ability and willingness to fund public colleges and universities. “In a way, the burden of paying for higher education is shifting from the states to the federal government,” she said."

7. NCAA data show more athletes graduating from college, by Allie Grasgreen Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/tHDuCL via @AddThis - "The two sports of greatest concern are also the ones that bring in the most money. While the football and men’s basketball graduation success rates this year either rose slightly or stayed steady, the rates are still significantly lower than the overall NCAA average of 82 percent. Male basketball players are graduating at a rate two points higher this year, at 68 percent, while the football GSR dropped 0.6 points to 68.6 percent."

8. Solving the Nation's Dropout Crisis, by Russell W. Rumberger, Education Week - http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/10/26/09rumberger_ep.h31.html - "Past efforts to solve the nation’s dropout crisis have largely been unsuccessful. Government agencies and private foundations have collectively invested billions of dollars in dropout-prevention programs, comprehensive school reform models, and new charter schools. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation alone invested more than $2 billion in small high schools, yet research has identified few effective models. In a 2008 review of 22 dropout-prevention programs, the federal government’s What Works Clearinghouse did not find a single program proven to raise high school graduation rates, which is stunning."

9. Hechinger Report Companies, nonprofits making millions off teacher effectiveness push, by Sarah Garland: http://hechingerreport.org/content/companies-nonprofits-making-millions-off-teacher-effectiveness-push_6582/#.TqgVLnjBHSY.twitter via AddThis - "New education reforms often translate into big money for private groups. Following the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, states paid millions of dollars annually to companies to develop and administer the standardized tests required under the law. Companies also cashed in on a provision mandating tutoring for students at struggling schools. . . . In Florida, the state paid Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, a for-profit textbook publisher, $4.8 million to develop classroom observation methods and nearly $4 million to the American Institutes for Research, a nonprofit, to create a value-added model for grading teachers based on student test scores, according to state officials."

10. Irish Student-Athletes Again Rank Number One In 2011 NCAA Graduation Success Rates - UND.COM - Univ - http://www.und.com/genrel/102511aaa.html

11. Post Your Questions on the New Student Loan Developments, by Ron Lieber: http://nyti.ms/rGFakB - "On Wednesday, President Obama plans to announce a number of changes in the federal student loan program. The initiatives will allow people to consolidate federal loans in new ways and also make the repayment program that is based on borrowers’ incomes more generous. The White House has outlined some of the changes on its Web site. What questions do you have about how all of this will work?"

12. Counseling Parents, With Some Help From a New Calculator, by Beckie Supiano -http://chronicle.com/blogs/headcount/counseling-parents-with-some-help-from-a-new-calculator/29091 - "When prospective students visit campus, Mr. Gudvangen has found that most of the questions about paying the bill come from parents, since they’re the ones who understand the family’s financial position. “This is an odd time in families’ lives,” he says. “At some point, students probably need to know these things, but they probably don’t as high-school seniors.”

13. Rise in Sticker Price at Public Colleges Outpaces That at Private Colleges for 5th Year in a Row, by Beckie Supiano - http://chronicle.com/article/Rise-in-Sticker-Price-at/129532/ - "For the fifth year in a row, the percentage increase in average published tuition and fees at public four-year colleges was higher than it was at private ones, according to the report, "Trends in College Pricing 2011." The report, released on Wednesday, examines annual changes in colleges' sticker prices, as well as the net prices students pay after grant aid and tax benefits are considered. A companion report, "Trends in Student Aid 2011," looks at the money that helps students meet those growing prices. (The pricing report looks at data through this academic year, while the student-aid report has information through 2010-11.)"

14. Institutions Charging More Than $50K for Tuition, Fees, Room, and Board -http://chronicle.com/article/Sortable-Table-Institutions/129527/ - "The 50K club is getting crowded: 123 institutions now charge $50,000 or more for tuition, fees, room, and board, according to data released by the College Board. That's up from last year, when 100 colleges and universities charged that much.Here are the institutions charging $50,000 or more:"

15. College Prices Up as States Slash Budgets, by Justin Pope - http://ti.me/uvSV9C via Time.com - "The states cut budgets, the price goes up, and the (federal) money goes to that," said Patrick Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. "For 25 years we've been putting more and more money into financial aid, and tuition keeps going up. We're on a national treadmill."

16. Ravitch: ditch NCLB, not tinker with it -http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/ravitch-congress-should-ditch-nclb-not-tinker-with-it/2011/10/25/gIQAtgkmHM_blog.html?tid=sm_btn_twitter via @washingtonpost -

"The federal government does not know how to reform schools. Period. Congress doesn’t, and the U.S. Department of Education doesn’t. The fundamental role of the federal government should be to advance equality of educational opportunity. That’s a tall order. Congress should revive the commitments made in 1965, when the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed: To use federal resources on behalf of the neediest students; to protect the civil rights of students; to conduct research about education; to report on the condition and progress of American education."

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

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."

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."

264. 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. Terrelle Pryor apologizes for actions that led him to leave Ohio State, by Erick Smith: http://usat.ly/jCJ5c2 - "Pryor did not take questions after his statement. He did confirm he would enter the NFL's supplemental draft and said he was nine credits short of graduating from Ohio State and hoped to receive his degree from the school."

2. College Bound: Low-Income Students More Likely to Attend For-Profits, by Caralee Adams - http://t.co/xo8pH7s - "Students between ages 18 and 26 whose total household income is near or below the federal poverty level are likely to be overrepresented at for-profit institutions and underrepresented at public and private nonprofit four-year institutions, according to Portraits: Initial College Attendance of Low-Income Young Adults by IHEP, an independent, nonprofit public-policy research organization in Washington."

3. U.S. Students Remain Poor at History, Tests Show, by Sam Dillon - http://nyti.ms/iMj1G1 - "American students are less proficient in their nation’s history than in any other subject, according to results of a nationwide test released on Tuesday, with most fourth graders unable to say why Abraham Lincoln was an important figure and few high school seniors able to identify China as the North Korean ally that fought American troops during the Korean War."

4. With Perkins Loan Program Set to Expire in 3 Years, College Presidents Work to Preserve It, by Beckie Supiano - http://chronicle.com/article/College-Presidents-Pull/127918/ - "For many low-income students, several panelists noted, a Perkins Loan is all that stands between a student and needing to take out a higher-interest private loan. "In a real sense, the Perkins Loan is the last chance not to say 'no' to a student who wants to go to school," said the Rev. Charles L. Currie, president of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities."

5. University of the People: Tuition-free higher education, by Daniel de Vise - http://wapo.st/j3yc9P - "The biggest drawback to Reshef’s school is that it lacks accreditation. There’s little hope for his students to transfer their credits to any other university until it gains accreditation. Reshef says he’s working with an as-yet-unnamed accreditor."

6. Reviewing education reform in the 2010-11 school year, by Valerie Strauss - http://t.co/Ce7fjg1 via @washingtonpost - "That contest, plus a controversial film about charter schools called “Waiting for ‘Superman,’ ” propelled a reform movement that stresses choice and incentives rather than equity and funding."

7. The MOST Expensive Private Colleges - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/13/the-most-expensive-privat_n_876440.html#s291540&title=Connecticut_College_43990 - "Although it overall nabbed 41st place in a ranking of liberal arts schools, Connecticut College tops the list of the most expensive colleges in the nation, according to a new study by US News and World Report. 7 of the colleges listed are liberal arts colleges, and two are national universities. One is a regional college."

8. Slowing the summer slide to lower academic achievement: Making summer school cool, by Maureen Downey - http://bit.ly/leRksA - “While all students lose some ground in mathematics over the summer, low-income students lose more ground in reading, while their higher-income peers may even gain,” states the RAND study.“Most disturbing is that summer learning loss is cumulative; over time, the difference between the summer learning rates of low-income and higher-income students contributes substantially to the achievement gap,” the study warns."

9. Symposium Focuses on Positioning Young Black Boys for Educational Success - http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/symposium-focuses-on-positioning-young-black-boys-for-educational-success-123831924.html - "The toxic cocktail of poverty, illiteracy, racial disparities, violence, massive incarceration and family breakdown is sentencing millions of children to dead end and hopeless lives and threatens to undermine the past half century of racial and social progress," says Marian Wright Edelman, President of the Children's Defense Fund. "These ingredients ultimately combine to produce striking gaps in educational success, life expectancy and other important outcomes. We believe there are ways to avoid these outcomes."

10. Separate and unequal, by Karen Finney - TheHill.com: http://bit.ly/k5pWjp - "McKinsey analyzed data that suggest America’s academic achievement gap “imposes on the United States the economic equivalent of a permanent national recession.” The study suggests that closing the gap between black and Latino students and white students between 1983 and 1998 would have raised the GDP between $310 billion and $525 billion by 2008."

11. We Must Help Students Reach College, by Yash Gupta - http://t.co/5vUumzq via @educationweek"We should all be terrified. The young people moving through our education system, particularly at public schools in low-income areas, are lamentably unprepared for the challenges that await them in their post-academic lives."

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."

178. 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. Recent grads finding jobs - in their living rooms, by Jessica Dickler -http://t.co/dMEGo9a via @CNNMoney

"She's one of a growing number of young professionals choosing to work from home as telecommuting opportunities have jumped nearly 400% in the past three years, according to job-search site FlexJobs.com."

2. Oversigning offenders won't be curbed by NCAA's toothless rule, by Andy Staples - http://bit.ly/g6iYgS /via @SI_24Seven

"When Football Bowl Subdivision schools across the nation begin signing football players on Feb. 2, they'll have to adhere for the first time to an NCAA bylaw that limits them to 28 signees between Signing Day and May 31. Unchanged is the rule that declares schools can bring in only 25 new scholarship players each academic year."

3. On education reform, safe is for losers, by Richard Whitmire - http://usat.ly/eD79K7 - RT @USATODAY

"On this round of the trusted National Assessment of Educational Progress, only one in five high school seniors scored proficient in science. Worse, only a handful scored at the advanced level — not an encouraging sign as the nation faces international economic competition based more on brains than brawn."

4. A January Deadline Met, but the Applications Continue, by Uyanga Tamir - http://nyti.ms/gwqYWP

"So here I am, a second semester senior still filling out applications and writing good old essays. Since the bigger wave of applications has passed, I also have started my scholarship search. Most of the scholarships that are available have deadlines in the second semester, which is convenient for all students. To those other students who believe that second semester of senior year is going to be a breeze, it really will not be if you are serious about your future. Life does not get easier, only more challenging – something that I anticipate with enthusiasm and readiness."

5. Shielding Education and Research, by Doug Lederman - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/fhRsZM

‎"The president's speech was relatively short on details about programs he would seek to shield from the overall five-year freeze on domestic spending he proposes; it made no mention of Pell Grants or other financial aid (which many college leaders fear could face cutbacks if Republicans stick to their goal of slashing domestic spending) . . . ."

6. The Same Boxes to Check, by Scott Jaschik - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/fitseI

"The Common Application has rejected a proposal that it add optional questions on sexual orientation and gender identity. The board of the organization issued a statement suggesting that colleges have other ways to indicate support for applicants who are gay or who don't identify with traditional gender categories, and that adding the questions could pose problems."

7. Deal Stopped in Its Tracks, by David Moltz - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/fDrCtZ

"Though Cuyahoga would keep all tuition from in-county students in this program, it would have to give 70 percent of tuition from out-of-county students to Academic Partnerships. Ross noted that the college would pilot two course offerings of 30 students to see if the model made financial sense, then expand it if deemed appropriate."

8. Enrollment Management, Inc.: External Influences on Our Practice -http://www.usc.edu/programs/cerpp/docs/EnrollmentManagementInc.ReportFINAL_002.pdf

A report on the enrollment management industry, by Scott Andrew Schulz and Jerome A. Lucido, both of the University of Southern California

9. Top Schools See Record Applications for 2015 - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/25/top-schools-see-jump-in-a_n_812455.html#s227215&title=University_of_CaliforniaLos

‎"This year, the ten University of California campuses all attracted large volumes of applicants, with UCLA topping the list with a record 61,498 applications. Among private schools, Columbia University saw a massive 32 percent increase in applicants from last year, for a total of 34,587 applications."

10. Is College Tuition Too Low? by David Leonhardt - http://nyti.ms/fBBp08

‎"In essence, Mr. Becker and Mr. Posner are calling for a higher list price for public colleges. Well-off families would be able to pay this higher list price. Their children would still go to college, graduate and, far more often than not, earn enough of a wage premium to make college a fabulously good deal. Middle- and lower-income families, on the other hand, would not have to pay more than they’re now paying."

11. Census Data Show Rise in College Degrees, but Racial Gaps in Education, by Alex Richards-http://chronicle.com/article/Census-Data-Reveal-Rise-in/126026/

"For instance, the census estimates that in 2009, 28 percent of Americans 25 and older had at least four-year degrees. But the rate for black Americans was just 17 percent, and for Hispanic Americans only 13 percent."

12. Proficiency Eludes U.S. Students on Science NAEP, by Erik W. Robelen - http://t.co/2J5jeSL via @educationweek

‎"Only one in five high school seniors scored at least proficient on the exam. Meanwhile, 34 percent of 4th graders and 30 percent of 8th graders were deemed proficient or better in science on the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as “the nation’s report card.”

13. Application Boom Begets a New Strategy, by Eric Hoover - http://chronicle.com/blogs/headcount/the-application-boom-begets-a-new-strategy/27800

"So Rutgers decided to allow applicants to submit their academic information—courses, grades, grade-point averages, and class rank—via an online form called the Self-Reported Academic Record. Students who decide to enroll must then ask their high schools to send an official copy of their transcript by July 15, so the admissions staff can verify the information they had submitted. In other words, the university must process transcripts only for those students who enroll."

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167. 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. Auburn football team champs on field but not in graduation rates - http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/sports/auburn-football-team-champs-on.html

"According to the Academic Progress Rate, a four-year assessment by the NCAA of the movement toward graduation for a team’s players, Auburn has dropped from No. 4 to No. 85 among the 120 major college football programs."

2. 'Sad Day For California,' by Jack Stripling - Inside Higher Ed: http://bit.ly/eWdkpb

"In an effort to tackle an estimated $28 billion budget shortfall, the newly elected governor would strip $1.4 billion from public higher education institutions. The reductions would include $500 million each in cuts for the University of California and California State University. Additionally, $400 million would be carved from the budgets of the California Community Colleges."

3. Young People Say Sex, Paychecks Come In Second To Self-Esteem: http://bit.ly/hauxJ4

‎"One of the items they were asked about was self-esteem building experiences, such as receiving a good grade or receiving a compliment. “We found that self-esteem trumped all other rewards in the minds of these college students,” Bushman said."

4. 7 Prestigious Undergrad Scholarships, by Michelle Showalter - http://t.co/lJD4xMQ - The Scholarship Coach (usnews.com)

‎"Here are seven of the more well-known and lucrative scholarships available to high school students:"

5. 5 Reasons Not to Get a Law Degree, by Lynn O'Shaughnessy - http://t.co/W4EqIKJ

"For most young grads, the answer is a resounding no. At least that’s the conclusion you could easily draw from a lengthy story in The New York Times on Sunday. The article, Is Law School a Losing Game?, provided a devastating look at how law schools market themselves and manipulate their employment statistics to make their law degrees look like a great investment."

6. As Mental Troubles Arise, Limited Options for Institutions, by Benedict Carey - http://nyti.ms/fC3lXA

“It wasn’t a case of ‘Gee, no one saw this coming,’ ” Dr. Borum said. “People saw it. But the question then was what do you do about it? Who do you call? The whole thing speaks to the need for some coordinated way to detect such threats.”

7. NCAA Proposal Would Give Companies More Latitude to Use Athletes' Images in Ads, by Libby Sander - http://chronicle.com/article/NCAA-Proposal-Would-Give/125914/

"Existing rules generally bar companies from using an athlete's name, image, or "likeness" in advertisements, promotions, or other ventures. The proposed measure would allow corporate sponsors to feature game clips of current athletes in their TV ads, for instance, as long as the ads include the name of the athlete's institution."

8. Expert Predicts a Deluge of Tablet Computers on Campus, by Josh Fischman - http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/walt-mossberg-says-colleges-will-deal-with-a-deluge-of-tablets/28889

"And tablets will matter in higher education, Mr. Mossberg said, because students will bring them to campus, and colleges and—in particular—publishers will need to meet their needs. “The actual users, like students and faculty, will barge in,” he said."

9. U. of Arizona junior Daniel Hernandez helped Rep. Giffords Moments After Shooting - http://voices.washingtonpost.com/campus-overload/2011/01/u_of_arizona_junior_helped_rep.html

"Then he saw that Giffords (D-Ariz.) had a "severe gunshot wound to the head" and worked to reposition her body so she could breath without the risk of inhaling blood, Hernandez told the Wildcat. He applied pressure to stop her blood loss and gave others instructions. "She was my main focus so I stayed with her and tried to help her as much as possible," Hernandez, 20, told the campus newspaper."

10. The Education Reform Book Is Dead, by Jay P. Greene - http://educationnext.org/the-education-reform-book-is-dead/

"The problem is that education reform thinking is being shaped less and less by books. As we are seeing in other policy areas, blogs, articles, and other new media are displacing books as the primary means by which intellectual policy movements are formed and sustained."

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