Draft legislation to emphasize adolescent literacy

Bills are moving forward in both houses that would:

• increase funding for literacy education overall
  
• increase the proportion spent on older students
• designate monies for staff development
• emphasize the connections between reading and writing

This article in Education Week provides more detail on the proposed bills and brings together opinions of interested parties.

NCATE to change accreditation requirements

NCATE will be changing their accreditation requirements immediately to emphasize "continuing research into good teaching methods" according to this report in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Colleges will have until 2012 to update their curricula. Many colleges are already seeking to make their programs more relevant by working with local schools to expose students to research-based teaching strategies.

Education Week's article on the significantly revised standards discusses two possible paths to meeting requiements.

Time to Kill "No Child Left Behind"

Education historian and NYU professor Diane Ravitch takes on NCLB as "failed law"...
An excerpt is here:
"Congress should get rid of No Child Left Behind because it is a failed law. It is dumbing down our children by focusing solely on reading and mathematics. By ignoring everything but basic skills, it is not preparing students to compete with their peers in the high-performing nations of Asia and Europe, nor is it preparing them for citizenship in our complex society. It has usurped state and local control of education. Washington has neither the knowledge nor the capacity to micromanage the nation’s schools."

The full article in EdWeek is here.

Longitudinal data on late high school dropouts from NCES

It appears we are disproportionately failing to graduate those students already most disadvantaged. From the report summary...

"....presents information about selected characteristics and experiences of high school sophomores in 2002 who subsequently dropped out of school. It also presents comparative data about late high school dropouts in the years 1982, 1992, and 2004. The findings only address dropping out in late high school and do not cover students who dropped out before the spring of 10th grade. For this reason, the reported rates are lower than those based on the students' entire high school or earlier school career. Key findings include the following:

* Forty-eight percent of all late high school dropouts come from families in the lowest quarter (bottom 25 percent) of the socioeconomic status distribution, and 77 percent of late high school dropouts come from the lowest half of the socioeconomic status distribution.

* Most late high school dropouts (83 percent) listed a school-related (versus a family- or employment-related) reason for leaving. These reasons included missing too many school days, thinking it would be easier to get a GED, getting poor grades, and not liking school.

* The overall late high school dropout rate was lower in 2004 than in 1982 (7 percent versus 11 percent, respectively) and lower in 1992 than in 1982 (6 percent versus 11 percent), but it showed no statistically significant difference in 2004 compared with 1992."

To view, download and print the report as a PDF file, please visit:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2009307

Why the discrepancies in funding higher ed institutions?

This article in today's Inside Higher Ed suggests that proximity to the state capital and which party is in power all may play a role. But location isn't destiny and they offer ideas for increasing your piece of the pie.

University presses endorse open access

Taking a stand against the AAUP (American Association of University Presses) and the re-introduced Conyers legislation, directors of 10 university presses (including Michigan, Penn State, and Massachusetts) have endorsed making scholarly content openly available. The article from CHE's Wired Campus gives an overview and the blog posting where the statement originally came out is here.

Complaints about group projects in class

If you've assigned group projects in your class, you've probably also had complaints about them. Seniors and recent graduates on a panel at the Teaching Professor conference all agreed they were problematic. The article in CHE provides a link to this piece by Oakley, Brent, Felder & Elhajj, (2004) on improving the design and assessment of group projects--everyone agrees there have to be individual performance measures included.

"a tenure system that allows flexibility in firing is oxymoronic."

Thank you judge! There have been a number of initiatives afoot in these economically distressed times to curtail the protections of tenure. The judge in this Colorado case ruled that tenure systems are a benefit to the public as well as to the faculty.

The impact of work on college students--it's complicated

Two recent studies reported at last week's Association for Institutional Research meeting examined the relationship between hours worked and student achievement, engagement, critical thinking, moral reasoning, socially responsible leadership, and psychological well being. In general, an excess of hours (over 20) has detrimental effects on student academic achievement, but not always on other areas measured. The implications for retaining students are discussed in today's Inside Higher Ed article.