A tally of possible program cuts

Someone's been doing their homework! The Chronicle put together a list of universities and the programs slated for possible cuts. UNLV and UNR are among them.

High quality schools CAN close the achievement gap for the poorest minority students

What Works Clearinghouse reviewed this study and found it to meet their evidentiary standards. This was a study of the Promise Academy Middle School in Harlem which provided:

• Extended school day and year with additional after-school tutoring and Saturday classes
• Intensive test preparation including morning, mid-day, after-school, and Saturday sessions
• Student incentives for high achievement, such as money and trips to France
• School health clinic provides students free medical, dental, and mental-health services

Sixth graders were admitted by lottery and showed significant improvements on math and English Language Arts on standardized tests by the 8th grade. The full report is here.
Citation:
Dobbie, W., & Fryer, R. G., Jr., (2009). Are high-quality schools enough to close the achievement gap? Evidence from a social experiment in Harlem. (NBER Working Paper No. 15473). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.

Journal table of contents (TOC) alerting service

You can set up alerting services to notify you of new journal issues in a number of databases we subscribe to, as well as through individual journals. However, this service, called TicToc, is one I wasn't previously aware of and allows you--like the INgenta service if you're familiar with that--to select as many journal titles as you want across disciplines. Here's what a colleague (thanks Meg Westbury) on a professional listserv has to say about it:
"You set up an account, choose ("tic") which academic journals you'd like to track (from a list of over 10K), and then view the tables of contents ("toc") of those journals when you like. You can set up an RSS feed ... It's a very handy and easy-to-use tool. The one drawback is that you can only view the TOCs of the most current issue of a journal; back issues aren't archived."
Have fun! http://www.tictocs.ac.uk/

Study of reading and math software in the classroom

The study examined the effects of ten reading and mathematics software products on student achievement. The study analyzed data on more than 11,000 students in 400 classrooms and was conducted in 23 primarily urban, low-income school districts. The number of students in the analysis of each curriculum ranged from about 600 to about 2,600...the study found that one of six products reading products (LeapTrack^®, 4th grade) had positive effects on test scores; none of the four math products did.

This study met WWC standards and so the results are considered robust. As is most often the case, they find a lot out there that doesn't do what it's purported to...so WWC is a good place to check before investing in a new curriculum product. The brief review is here.

The complete citation is: Campuzano, L., Dynarski, M., Agodini, R., & Rall, K. (2009). Effectiveness of reading and mathematics software products: Findings from two student cohorts (NCEE 2009-4041). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.

Read the executive summary here.

NCES report on alternative schools

This report presents data from a recent district ... survey about alternative schools and programs available to students during the 2007-08 school year. Alternative schools and programs are specifically designed to address the educational needs of students at risk of school failure in a setting apart from that of the regular public school...The study includes information on the availability and number of alternative schools and programs, the number of students enrolled in alternative schools and program, and district policy on returning students to a regular school. Findings include:

• In the 2007–08 school year, 64 percent of districts reported having at least one alternative school or program for at-risk students
• There were 646,500 students enrolled in public school districts attending alternative schools and programs for at-risk students in 2007–08

To view the full report please visit http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2010026

Culture and the Interaction of Student Ethnicity with Reward Structure in Group Learning

Interesting study reviewed in the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC). Elementary students (4th & 5th grade) were randomly assigned to receive an individual reward, a reward based on group performance, or no reward. The evaluation found that individual rewards led to higher achievement among white students but lower performance among African- American students. This was a study of math learning skills (multiplication). The WWC brief review is here. The full citation is:
Hurley, E. A., Allen, B. A., & Boykin, A. W. (2009). Culture and the interaction of student ethnicity with reward structure in group learning. Cognition and Instruction, 27(2), 121–146.
The article is available through the libraries' electronic journal subscriptions.

Helping high school students get to college

A California based project which linked high school students with college student mentors saw small but significant increases in the number of students taking the SAT, completing applications for financial aid, getting grants and scholarships and enrolling in college. Their results are equivalent to those found from the Upward Bound program but at approximately one-fourth of the cost. Brief description of the project is in this Education Week blog: Inside School Research

Improving Latino college graduation rates

A new report from the American Enterprise Insitute reaffirms the common wisdom that Latino graduation rates lag those of "white students" but also reveals some surprising discrepancies. Within the same groupings, i.e, different levels of admission selectivity, the top 10 performing schools often have 50% higher graduation rates for Latinos than the lowest 10 performing schools. A summary of the findings and links to the full report are here: "Rising to the Challenge: Hispanic College Graduation Rates as a National Priority"

Arizona universities share the pain

Arizona universities are being asked to cut payroll and are also increasing student tuition. They have already eliminated 2,000 positions and instituted furloughs. More in this article from the Arizona Daily Star.

Higher Ed as driver of economic development

Hardly a radical concept. However a new report from the Rockefeller Institute of Government (SUNY) suggests 4 ways in which this works:

• Innovation — that is, using their research power to create knowledge that can have economic impact, and then actively working to help move new ideas into the marketplace.
• Knowledge transfer that helps businesses grow and prosper, through programs such as job training, technical and other consulting assistance, and assistance to startups.
• An activist role in revitalizing the communities in which they are located, such as efforts to help local elementary and secondary schools.
• And their core mission of producing the educated populace that’s needed to build, run and work in the innovation economy.

K-12 draft standards available for feedback

This message forwarded from Tracy Gruber at the Nevada Dept. of Education...

"...the Nevada Department of Education is pleased to announce that the first official public draft of the K-12 standards as part of the Common Core State Standards Initiative were released today. NDE would like to encourage those interested to provide feedback on the standards by Friday, April 2, 2010, at http://www.corestandards.org/. At the website, a copy of the Mathematics and English Language Arts documents are provided, as well as a link to provide feedback. NDE encourages that you and your colleagues provide feedback on these documents. These draft standards, developed together with teachers, school administrators and experts, seek to provide a clear and consistent framework to prepare our children for college and the workforce. The standards define the knowledge and skills students should have within their K-12 education careers so that they will graduate high school able to succeed in entry-level, credit-bearing academic college courses and in workforce training programs. The standards are:

• Aligned with college and work expectations;
• Clear, understandable and consistent;
• Include rigorous content and application of knowledge through high-order skills;
• Build upon strengths and lessons of current state standards;
• Informed by other top performing countries, so that all students are prepared to succeed in our global economy and society; and
• Evidence- and research-based.

The final edition of the standards are expected to be released in early Spring." (end forwarded message)

APA Style DOI/URL Flowchart

In case you wondered where I've been, I'm up to my eyebrows in writing at the moment, but I will get caught up--eventually. Still this caught my eye. It's a flowchart posted last fall on the APA Style blog that tells you when and how to use DOI's and URL's when citing articles. Here's a simplified version for citing articles, consistent with APA, from Radford University.