Printer-friendly versionSome of the News Fit to Print
COMMUNITY COLLEGE STUDENTS MISS OUT ON GRANTS
California community college students are leaving up to $500 million in federal financial aid on the table, money that could help cover books, transportation, fees, food and housing at a time when the cost of education is going up dramatically, according to a report released Wednesday. The students just haven't applied for it. Given the increased costs placed on California college students because of state budget cuts and a corresponding drop in funding for financial aid, it's frustrating that there's a big pile of untapped cash, said officials from the nonprofit Institute for College Access and Success in Berkeley. The article is in the San Francisco Chronicle.
TEACHERS' UNIONS SLAM OBAMA BUDGET PROPOSAL
Major education groups, including the heads of both national teachers’ unions, urged a House appropriations subcommittee Wednesday to reconsider the Obama administration’s fiscal 2011 budget proposal, which would put all new education funding into competitive grants rather than into aid formulas. They also opposed attaching new requirements, such as mandating that states overhaul their teacher-evaluation systems, as a condition of accepting the formula dollars. “Title I [aid for disadvantaged students] needs to be a formula-driven program,” said Randi Weingarten, the president of the 1.4 million-member American Federation of Teachers. “We believe that Title I funding should not be based on outcomes of political fights at the state level, ... and it also should not be based on how well a district can write a grant.” The article is compliments of Education Week.
THE LATINO COMPLETION GAP EXAMINED
With Latino Americans expected to make up more than 20 percent of the college-age population by 2020, most policy makers recognize that it will be nearly impossible to meet President Obama's college completion goals without significant improvement in the graduation rates of Hispanic students, which have long lagged those of other racial and ethnic groups, as numerous studies have documented. A new analysis digs more deeply into the data surrounding Latino graduation rates, and while it confirms the overall reality that Latino students trail their white peers at all types of institutions, no matter how selective, it also reveals wide variation in the relative success of institutions with similar student bodies. That matters, the authors say, because it shows that the educational practices of institutions matter. The article is in Inside Higher Ed.
IS COLLEGE ESSENTIAL FOR ALL AMERICANS?
A series of debates sponsored by the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs address whether America needs more college graduates to remain competitive on a global level, or whether the emerging job markets favor people without degrees. Paul Solman moderates on the NewsHour on PBS.
TEACHING THE WRITING TEACHERS
"I was incredibly well trained to teach college writing, but only one course at a time. How do you teach five classes when you've only been trained to teach one?" That was the question of a community college writing instructor who has taught herself how to manage the workload she now has. Her experience reflects the sense shared by many composition experts that it's time for a new approach to teaching those who will teach writing at community colleges. Some four-year colleges rely on their English faculties to teach introductory writing; others have separate writing programs or composition/rhetoric departments. Either way, these programs tend to be led by Ph.D.'s (even if much of the teaching is carried out by adjuncts or grad students who may not have earned doctorates). The article is in Inside Higher Ed.
LAWMAKERS SAY RURAL SCHOOL NEEDS OVERLOOKED
An Oklahoma senator complained that federal rules on teacher credentials had driven thousands of experienced educators out of rural schools. A North Carolina lawmaker complained that formulas for distributing federal education money favored big-city districts at the expense of poor students in small towns. And a senator from Alaska wanted to know how school-turnaround strategies based on firing ineffective instructors would work in a remote village on the Bering Sea that she said already had tremendous teacher turnover. Lawmakers who represent rural areas told Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in a hearing Wednesday that the No Child Left Behind law, as well as the Obama administration’s blueprint for overhauling it, failed to take sufficiently into account the problems of rural schools, and their nine million students. The article is in The New York Times.
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