Printer-friendly versionSome of the News Fit to Print
DESPITE GAINS, CHARTER TOLD TO CLOSE
A commitment to shut or radically shake up failing schools is central to President Obama’s vision of education reform. But as New York State moves to shut down an Albany charter school, whose test scores beat the city’s public schools last year, it’s become apparent that holding schools themselves accountable is not always so easy, or bloodless, as numbers on a page. The dispute in Albany exposes a delicate issue in the data-driven world of education policy: If a school improves, but not enough to meet high standards, should its value as a safe and nurturing community also be weighed? This article is in The New York Times.
CAL STATE REQUIRES REMEDIATION PRIOR TO FRESHMAN YEAR
In an effort to better prepare students for college-level work, the California State University approved a controversial policy that requires academically needy students to take remedial math and English coursework before they start their freshman year. This article is in The San Jose Mercury News.
ONE CLASSROOM, FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA
Susan Jacoby, Program Director for the Center for Inquiry-New York City, writes in The New York Times: No one in either party today has the courage to say it, but what made sense for a sparsely settled continent at the dawn of the Republic is ill suited to the needs of a 21st-century nation competing in a global economy. The real question is whether anything, in the current polarized political climate, can be done about educational disparities that are inseparable from our fragmented system of public schooling. I can imagine at least three baby steps that would pave the way for success.
WHEN WRITING CLASS MOVES ONLINE
For first-year students at many colleges and universities, the single course that everyone takes and the course with the greatest chance for personal interaction with an instructor is writing. So what happens when that key part of the curriculum moves online? The Conference on College Composition and Communication is working to develop "best practices" guidelines to assure quality as this significant shift takes place. Leaders of the association presented preliminary results of national surveys and in-depth focus groups that they have conducted with online writing instructors. The early results show some encouraging signs (such as better course retention rates that some might expect) but also some findings that worried some here (such as a minimalist approach to training instructors and little evidence that colleges are thinking about the pedagogical implications of the shift). This article is from Inside Higher Ed.
RISE IN STUDENTS SEEKING FAMILY-MEDICINE RESIDENCIES
After a decade of declines, the number of American medical-school students entering residency programs in family medicine increased 9 percent this year. Some medical-education experts said the increase could stem partly from the debate over pending health-care legislation, with its emphasis on the importance of primary care. Over the past decade, the number of American medical-school graduates pursuing family medicine has dropped by 52 percent, and many experts are predicting shortages of such physicians as baby boomers age and doctors retire. But high student-loan debts and relatively low pay have turned many medical students away from primary-care careers. This article is in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
