Printer-friendly versionSome of the News Fit to Print
“NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND” A TOXIC BRAND
President Obama plans to overhaul the 'No Child Left Behind' law. Former Education Secretary Margaret Spellings helped design the program during President George W. Bush's administration. Spellings has said the 2002 law has become "a toxic brand." She tells NPR’s Linda Wertheimer it is ripe for retooling.
ADMINISTRATION SEEKS CONVERTS
Facing intense resistance from teachers’ unions, the Obama administration has begun trying to persuade union leaders, teachers and the public that its proposals for overhauling federal education policies are good for teachers and for public schools. In remarks prepared for delivery to Congress on Wednesday, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan argued that the proposed policies would elevate the teaching profession by encouraging better tests, by ending the demoralizing practice of mislabeling thousands of schools as failures and by offering teachers opportunities for career growth. “We think there is a lot in our proposal that teachers will like,” Mr. Duncan said in the prepared testimony, a copy of which The New York Times obtained on Tuesday.
BOYS TRAIL GIRLS IN READING, GENDERS EVEN IN MATH
A new study on gender differences in academic achievement, offering what it calls “good news for girls and bad news for boys,” finds that, overall, male students in every state where data were available lag behind females in reading, based on an analysis of recent state test results. At the same time, in mathematics, a subject in which girls have historically trailed, the percentages of both genders scoring “proficient” or higher were roughly the same, with boys edging out girls slightly in some states and girls posting somewhat stronger scores in others. This article is compliments of Education Week.
NUMBER OF REMEDIAL MATH STUDENTS ADDS UP
The Great Recession has sent thousands of Alabamians back to school to lay the groundwork for new careers, and many of them are finding they've lost their math skills in the intervening years. A record 9.7 percent of undergraduates at colleges and universities in the state took remedial math classes in the fall, according to data released Friday by the Alabama Commission on Higher Education. That's up from 8.4 percent the year before. Diane Sherman, director of research for the commission, said the jump in demand for remedial math is a direct result of older students returning to the classroom. The article is in the Birmingham News.
WHAT IF COLLEGE JUST ISN’T FOR EVERYONE?
Long before President Obama vowed last year that America will "have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world" by 2020, the premium placed on going to college was firmly embedded in the American psyche. The case is compelling: As good jobs increasingly require more education, college is widely seen as the ticket to personal economic security and to global competitiveness. And the message has gotten through: The percentage of students who went on to college or trade school within a year of high school climbed from 47% in 1973 to 67% in 2007, Census data show. And yet, there's an undercurrent of concern about a group of students — sometimes called "the forgotten half," a phrase coined 22 years ago by social scientists studying at-risk young people — who, for whatever reason, do not think college is for them. The article is in USA Today.
COLLEGES OF ED ENCOURAGED TO FOCUS ON ONLINE LEARNING
The draft of a new federal plan focuses on improving digital learning at the elementary- and secondary-school level, but it calls for changes in higher education as well. “Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology,” released this month by the Department of Education, is a draft of the National Educational Technology Plan 2010. It calls for an increased role for online learning in kindergarten through 12th grade and says colleges of education must include online learning in their curricula as well. Susan Patrick, president of the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, said students today have grown up with the Internet and are more comfortable with technology, but also have higher expectations for the online learning experience. Ms. Patrick cited Boise State and Michigan State Universities as two institutions whose colleges of education emphasize online learning. But she said most higher-education institutions haven't yet added sufficient resources dedicated to that method of instruction. The article is in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
