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How Much Time Do Students Spend Taking Tests?
Amid the strong and growing drumbeat of complaints about overtesting at the K-12 level, many education reporters and others may be left wondering how much time students really spend taking standardized tests. And who is demanding most of this testing, anyway? The federal government? States? Local districts?
Nature Beats Nurture in Large British Study
In the battle of nature versus nurture, it’s not even close.
A study published Monday and reported on by the Los Angeles Times argues that inherited traits play an outsize role in how students perform on a compulsory exam taken by British 16-year-olds.
Experts: Community College Results Weighed Down by Remediation
From politicians to policymakers, the argument goes that sustaining America’s competitive edge will rely largely on more students graduating college.
But while the nation has notched successes in sending more students to postsecondary institutions, the college dropout rate remains stubbornly high. One major reason for the attrition: Millions of high school graduates are academically unprepared for the rigors of higher ed.
Social Media Giant Jumps at the College Rankings Game
If you’re into numbers, you may want to consider the University of Pennsylvania over Yale. Computers? Try Stanford. If the media is your desired career path, New York, Hofstra and Duke universities should be on your list.
In California, the Tide Shifts on ‘Willful Defiance’ Discipline
California has limited schools’ ability to suspend or expel students for “willful defiance,” passing a law over the weekend that curbed the practice.
Approved by Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown, the measure is considered the first statewide law in the nation to apply limits on a school’s ability to punish a student for “willful defiance” – a catch-all term that many social justice advocates say disproportionately targets minority students for allegedly disobeying school officials.
Understanding the Facts on Campus Sexual Assaults
California became the first state in the country to describe what is meant by “yes means yes” during sexual encounters when Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill into law on Monday.
And it also puts the onus on California higher education institutions to reshape their sexual assault policies and reporting practices, as The Associated Press reported.
Deciphering Student-Loan Default Rates
The federal government today released a snapshot of how well borrowers with federal student loans are repaying their debts, indicating that fewer Americans are defaulting on their college loans compared to past years, but that the figures still exceed pre-recession levels.
In Wake of Pushback, States Rewriting Common Core
In May, Missouri lawmakers approved a compromise to keep the Common Core in place for at least two more years but require more oversight and public input. And as Joe Robertson of the Kansas City Star reported, a total of eight committees comprised of lawmakers and parents were supposed to convene at the statehouse this week to begin the work of revising the standards.
Expanded Learning Time, Kindergarten Among Proposed Federal Rules for Turnaround Schools
After spending more than $3.5 billion on a program to improve chronically low-performing schools — only to see mixed results — the Obama administration is proposing major revisions to the menu of turnaround efforts that low-performing schools can undertake to qualify for funding under the program.
Data Might Help Colleges Sort Out the ‘Murky Middle’
Stephanie Dupaul of Southern Methodist University put the theme of EWA’s 2014 Higher Education seminar, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Covering the College Student Experience,” to effective use during a session exploring the use of data by colleges:
Truancy in the News: California’s Low-Income Student Absentee Problem
“Good education policies are meaningless if students aren’t at their desks.”
That’s California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris’ response to a new report out this week that found low-income students were truant more often than their wealthier peers.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Harris’ office partnered with a research group to evaluate the attendance trends of 32 school districts that educate 150,000 students, finding that 90 percent of the students who missed 36 days or more of school were low-income.
Experts: The White House Plan to Rate Colleges Has Major Issues
A new rating system backed by the White House aims to evaluate nearly all of the nation’s colleges and universities. Roughly 6,000 schools that educate around 22 million students are about to endure an unprecedented amount of federal scrutiny.
And though a version of the Postsecondary Institution Ratings System is scheduled to be unveiled in the fall, policy watchers are still unsure of what’s in store.
Does Your School District Own Grenade Launchers?
Prompted by the controversy over the type of equipment the Ferguson police department used during protests over the death of Michael Brown, news organizations across the country started requesting information about a U.S. Department of Defense program that provided police departments with defense equipment.
Why should education reporters care?
Some of those police departments happen to belong to school districts, colleges and universities.
How to Help the 21st Century College Student
When Mark Milliron met with an advertising team to promote a new type of college in Texas, he wasn’t expecting fireworks. Still, the pitch floored him.
“The Texas Two-Step: Sign Up. Succeed.”
It was the sentence that would appear on billboards and in radio advertisements, enticing thousands of working adults to enroll in an online college – Western Governors University Texas. And it totally missed the point.
Early Education Plans Hit Snags
Early education gets support from both sides of the aisle. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce runs campaigns advocating for it. So does Hillary Clinton. And research appears conclusive that it’s important.
But as states respond to the data, a new challenge emerges: implementing early education programs successfully. Several recent stories provide different looks at how some locales are scaling up their early education offerings.
With Eye Toward Equity, Schools Rethink Discipline
In a month dominated by news reports of racial tension, a significant milepost in American race relations garnered less attention: For the first time in this country’s history, white students will this year no longer comprise a majority of the nation’s schoolchildren.
For Waiver States, More Time for Teacher Evaluations
States receiving waivers from the No Child Left Behind Act are getting more time to grapple with how to conduct teacher evaluations using student test scores, particularly the new Common Core State Standards-based assessments.
According to Education Week, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced the postponement at an event on Thursday in Washington, D.C., which earlier this summer announced its plan to delay its new teacher evaluations.
Battles Over Teaching History, Then and Now
A new round of opposition to planned changes in how high schools teach U.S. history is conjuring up its own echoes of the past.
Paying for College on Minimum Wage in 1978 Was Easier
PolitiFact fact-checked an Internet meme claim that a summer of minimum wage work in 1978 would generate enough income to pay for one year of university tuition that year.
A Look at Teacher Absences
Teaching the nation’s students is expensive. Some 3.1 million teachers lead U.S. classrooms, earning annual salaries of $56,400 on average. Throw in benefits and the tab rises even higher.