New data on home schooling

This is a Brief Issues report from NCES...

"The National Center for Education Statistics within the Institute of Education Sciences has released the report "1.5 Million Homeschooled Students in the United States in 2007."

This Issue Brief provides estimates of the number and percentage of homeschooled students in the United States in 2007 and compares these estimates to those from 1999 and 2003. In addition, parents' reasons for homeschooling their children in 2007 are described and compared to 2003. Estimates of homeschooling in 2007 are based on data from the Parent and Family Involvement in Education Survey (PFI) of the 2007 National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES)."

To view, download and print the report as a PDF file, please visit:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2009030

Re-invest in higher ed: commentary

This article in Dec. 16 Inside Higher Ed caught my attention because it is written by the president of my former employer, Oregon State University. Ed Ray is an economist by training and says, in part,
"At a time when our global competitors from Ireland to China are investing aggressively in their higher education systems, almost every state in our nation is headed the other direction. This pattern, now nearly three decades old, not only hampers our ability to be engines for economic prosperity, it also threatens our historic — and essential — role in creating opportunity for students who have traditionally looked to us as their gateway to success....

Lest we forget, that public mission is to provide higher education opportunities to students who often come from ordinary or worse economic and social circumstances, many of whom are capable of accomplishing extraordinary things. In fact, the history and the promise of this great nation is predicated on the fact that social and economic mobility have provided the dynamism that has created the most technologically sophisticated and prosperous nation on earth. Education has been the most powerful source of that mobility and dynamism. If public universities are forced to abandon that public mission for lack of funding, we are at risk as a nation of creating a permanent underclass of disadvantaged citizens who have little or no stake in our society and of losing the dynamism that has served us so well at the very moment when challenges we face relative to global economic competition have never been greater.

There are further, clear benefits to society within this public mission. The average college graduate working full time, for instance, pays roughly 134 percent more in federal income taxes and about 80 percent more in total federal, state and local taxes than the average high school graduate....

Our public universities have represented hope to generations of Americans. In a campaign year in which the concept of hope has become central to our electoral dialogue, we must not forget that real hope, meaningful hope, requires financial investment and that among the institutions in need of a financial rescue plan, public higher education must be a top priority."

Read it all!

Newest data on higher ed staffing and salaries

IPEDS data reported by NCES:
"This report presents information from the Winter 2007-08 Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) web-based data collection. Tabulations represent data requested from all postsecondary institutions participating in Title IV federal student financial aid programs. The tables in this publication include data on the number of staff employed in Title IV postsecondary institutions in fall 2007 by primary function/occupational activity, length of contract/teaching period, employment status, salary class interval, faculty and tenure status, academic rank, race/ethnicity, and gender. Also included are tables on the number of full-time instructional faculty employed in Title IV postsecondary institutions in 2007-08 by length of contract/teaching period, academic rank, gender, and average salaries."
To view, download and print the report as a PDF file, please visit:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2009154

New PEW report on the future of the Internet

Links to all portions of the new PEW report, "The Future of the Internet III," are available here as are links to earlier reports. Just in case you run out of things to read over the semester break :-)

Ranking higher education journals

The paper, "Status of journals in the field of higher education," by Bray and Majors was recently presented at ASHE. The research questions they addressed were:

1. Which journals do higher education faculty consider to be the top five in the field?
2. In which tiers do higher education faculty believe that specific journals fall?
3. With which journals do higher education faculty members exhibit the most familiarity?
4. Which journals do higher education faculty read the most frequently?
5. Which journals do higher education faculty cite the most frequently?
6. Using a weighted average of faculty perceptions of prestige and their knowledge and use of journals, into which tiers do specific higher education journals fall?

I'll be happy to send you a copy of the paper if you're interested.

Science education professors need more support

"Could science professors who focus more formally on teaching be the key to turning around the poor performance of many American students? That’s the suggestion of a new survey of science professors at the California State University System." Another interesting article in Dec. 19 Inside Higher Ed...couldn't find the study results online, yet.

New research supports the CW that diversity has benefits

Interesting article in Dec. 19 Inside Higher Education that finds research support for what has previously been the conventional wisdom--diversity can offer real benefits to all, not just the culturally non-dominant group members. The study found that, "Generally, and regardless of the attitudes with which students entered UCLA, those who lived with members of other ethnic groups showed statistically significant gains in comfort levels with people of different groups, having circles of friends beyond one’s own group, and a variety of other measures of tolerance toward different groups." There were other more controversial findings as well, so read the article. I'll put the book, The Diversity Challenge: Social Identity and Intergroup Relations on the College Campus, on order for the Lied collection as well.

Did you know the Carnegie classifications had changed?

I didn't, so I thought I would share some Web sites where you can find out more if you are interested.

• Here's the guide to using the Classifications Web site: http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/classifications/sub.asp?key=638&subkey=2155
• There's a basic description of the changes and rationale here: http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/classifications/index.asp?key=791
• There's an FAQ here: http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/about/sub.asp?key=18&subkey=405#1.0.1
• And here's a description of UNLV's classification: http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/classifications/sub.asp?key=748&subkey=15096&start=782

Academia.edu: UNLV's College of Ed needs some attention!!

Below is the note that came across a professional listserv describing this effort to link scholars around the world. So far only 1 person from UNLV's Ed Psych department is representing the College of Education there. So here's something you can fill those idle holiday hours with--get your name and scholarship out there!! :-)

Subject: [collib-l] Announcing "Academia.edu" to the College Library
Community

Dear all,
I recently finished my Ph.D on the philosophy of perception from Oxford.With a team of people from Stanford and Cambridge, I've just launched a website,www.academia.edu, which does two things:

- It shows academics around the world structured in a 'tree' format,
displayed according to their departmental and institutional affiliations.
- It enables academics to see news on the latest research in their area -the latest people, papers and talks.

We are hoping that Academia.edu will eventually list every academic in the world -- Faculty Members, Post-Docs, Graduate Students, and Independent Researchers. Academics can add their departments, and themselves, to the tree by clicking on the boxes.

Academics are joining the tree rapidly. More than 15,000 academics have added themselves in the last two months. Some professors on the site include:

- Richard Dawkins - http://oxford.academia.edu/RichardDawkins
- Stephen Hawking - http://cambridge.academia.edu/StephenHawking
- Paul Krugman - http://princeton.academia.edu/PaulKrugman
- Noam Chomsky - http://mit.academia.edu/NoamChomsky
- Steven Pinker - http://harvard.academia.edu/StevenPinker

We're trying to spread the word about Academia.edu as much as possible. It would be terrific if you could visit the site, and add yourself to your department on the tree...

And do spread the word to your friends and colleagues if you can.
Many thanks,

Richard

Dr. Richard Price
http://oxford.academia.edu/RichardPrice

NCES reports surprising findings on homework

Following a cohort of children who were in Kindergarten in 1998-99, this study looked at homework assigned in 1st, 3rd & 5th grade.
"Children in schools with higher percentages of minority students had teachers who expected more homework on a typical evening, whereas generally children in lower minority schools had teachers who expected less homework. In addition, in all three grades, larger percentages of Black, Asian, and Hispanic children than White children had parents who reported that their child did homework five or more times a week."
Full report available here: http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2009033

NCEE report on teacher preparation to work with students with disabilities

A new report from REL Southeast:
"The study examines the extent to which elementary education teacher preparation programs in 36 randomly selected colleges and universities in the six Southeast Region states integrate content related to students with disabilities. Findings show most programs require one disability-focused course, two-thirds incorporate fieldwork related to students with disabilities, and more than half incorporate disability content into their mission statements."

Report links here: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/projects/project.asp?projectID=171&productID=124

Meta-analysis of Reading Recovery studies

The What Works Clearinghouse recently reviewed 28 studies utililizing the Reading Recovery program, "a short-term tutoring intervention intended to serve the lowest-achieving (bottom 20%) first-grade students," conducted since 2005.

Here are their conclusions:

"Four studies of Reading Recovery^® meet What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evidence standards, and one study meets WWC evidence standards with reservations. The five studies included approximately 700 first-grade students in more than 46 schools across the United States.³

Based on these five studies, the WWC considers the extent of evidence for Reading Recovery^® to be medium to large for alphabetics, small for fluency and comprehension, and medium to large for general reading achievement."

The overview of their review and links to the full report and appendices are here: http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/reports/beginning_reading/reading_recovery/