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The House overwhelmingly passed a bill renewing the Higher
Education Act through 2012 at a cost of $97.4 billion. The bill would use
federal Web sites and other publicity to hold schools publicly accountable for
their overall costs and tuition increases. It would also seek to control
textbook costs and penalize states that reduce student aid. See vote
Some Chicago public schools are getting a top-to-bottom
housecleaning in recent years – including replacing the principal and most
teachers – in a bid to lift student achievement out of the nation's academic
basement. The drastic approach is known as "turnaround," and Chicago
is embracing it more than any US city, though it's unproven and is
controversial among teachers, many parents, and students. See story from
Christian Science Monitor
The near doubling in the cost of a college degree the past
decade has produced an explosion in high-priced student loans that could haunt
the U.S. economy for years. See story from
Associated Press
Southern school districts still lag behind the US average on
standardized-test scores, and many see their students, especially blacks and
Hispanics, drop out. Yet 50 years after the "Little Rock Nine"
integrated Central High in Arkansas, hundreds of Southern high schools, many
still under desegregation orders, have quietly become educational powerhouses,
muscling out California, the Midwest, and New England when it comes to school
innovation, excellence, and standard-setting. See story from
Christian Science Monitor
To live independently, single mothers need an education. But
to get one, they also need a place to live and child care – needs that colleges
are waking up to. See
story from Christian Science Monitor
As Congress prepares to reauthorize No Child Left Behind,
more educators want new definitions of achievement. See story from
Christian Science Monitor
Although Congress is poised to pass legislation which will
reduce the cost of some student loans, the real benefit to many college
students will be negligible. See story from Christian Science Monitor
The U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation to cut
interest rates on student loans in half over the next five years. The College
Student Relief Act of 2007 will gradually lower interest rates on federally
subsidized Stafford loans from 6.8 to 3.4 percent. These loans are offered to
low- and middle-income undergraduate college students and are free of interest
payments until six months after leaving college. See
story from U Wire See vote
When President Bush signed the landmark No Child Left Behind
Act five years ago , he conducted a three-state road show, touted its
bipartisan roots, and promised it would put US schools "on a new path of
reform, and a new path of results." In the five years since, critics and
admirers of the bill tend to agree about the reform part, but say they're still
waiting for results. See story from
Christian Science Monitor
A bipartisan group of scholars and business leaders, school
chancellors and education commissioners, and former cabinet secretaries and
governors concluded that America's public education system, designed to meet
the needs of 100 years ago when the workplace revolved around an assembly line,
is unsuited to today's global marketplace. Among the recommendations: 1) Offer
universal pre-kindergarten programs and opportunities for continuing education
for adults without high school diplomas. 2) Create state board exams that
students could pass at age 16 to move either on to community college or to a
university-level high school curriculum.3) Improve school salaries in exchange
for reducing secure pension benefits, and pay teachers more to work with
at-risk kids, for longer hours, or for high performance. 4) Create curriculums
that emphasize creativity and abstract concepts over rote learning or mastery
of facts. See
story from Christian Science Monitor
Immigration has also put the spotlight on the advantages and disadvantages of bilingual education. See story from Christian Science Monitor
A new study by Harvard says that the "No Child Left Behind" education plan by the Bush Administration will miss its goals by 2014, since it has not been able to achieve its racial achievement gaps. See story from All Headline News
Milwaukee's voucher program is expanding despite the fact that there is no clear indication that it has been successful. See story from Christian Science Monitor
A mayor in Massachusetts is resisting the exit exam requirement for high school graduation. See story from Christian Science Monitor
California is voting on universal pre-school in June. If it were to pass, California would be the fourth state after Georgia, Florida, and Oklahoma to provide universal preschool for 4-year-olds. But voter support for the proposal is diminishing. See story from Christian Science Monitor
High school dropouts are getting increasing attention as groundbreaking studies show how alarming the problem is. Nearly a third of high school students don't graduate on time; among blacks, Hispanics, and native Americans, it's almost half. A new survey suggests that the problem can be fixed. Most students don't drop out because they can't do the work. Nearly 90 percent had passing grades when they left school but left because they found the classes too boring. See story from Christian Science Monitor
A new organization, First Class Education, aims for all 50 states and the District of Columbia to reallocate school spending so that at least 65 cents on every dollar goes directly into the classroom - on books and teacher pay - by the end of 2008. See story from Christian Science Monitor
Educators give mixed reviews to the Administration's new competitiveness initiative focusing on improving student performance in math and science. See story from Christian Science Monitor
American fourth- and eighth- graders are continuing hard-won gains in mathematics, but are still struggling, or even losing ground, in reading. The new scores show that progress slowed between 2003 and 2005, when the No Child Left Behind law was most fully implemented. See story from Christian Science Monitor
A new initiative is encouraging minority fathers across the United States to become more involved in their children's education. See story from Christian Science Monitor
The United States is losing ground in education, as peers across the globe zoom by with bigger gains in student achievement and school graduations, a study shows. Among adults age 25 to 34, the U.S. is ninth among industrialized nations in the share of its population that has at least a high school degree. In the same age group, the United States ranks seventh, with Belgium, in the share of people who hold a college degree. By both measures, the United States was first in the world as recently as 20 years ago. See story from Associated Press
The most diverse class of college hopefuls in US history registered the highest average math scores ever reported on the SATs, the leading college entrance exam. See story from Christian Science Monitor
Just as students are heading back to school, frustration with the federal No Child Left Behind education law is hitting new heights at the grass-roots level from Maine to California. See story from Christian Science Monitor
Average scores on the ACT college entrance exam held steady across all subjects for the high school class of 2005 compared with last year's seniors, an indication that schools are treading water in their efforts to prepare students for college-level work. See story from Associated Press
U.S. 9-year-olds are reading better than they have in 30 years, despite a tripling of the number of students from non- English-speaking homes - and the chasm in achievement between races in both reading and math is narrowing. It's a sign that billions of dollars poured into early reading programs and standards-based reforms, especially in the past decade, may be making a difference. See story from Christian Science Monitor
Investing public money to make preschool available to every 4-year-old in California would generate an estimated $2 to $4 in benefits for every dollar spent, according to a new study. The study estimates that the cost of a high quality universal preschool program would be more than offset by benefits such as a drop in the amount of special education provided, less grade repetition among K-12 students, less youth and adult crime, and a more productive state workforce. See press release from Rand Corp.
A new Department of Education study suggests that rising tuitions, higher borrowing limits on government loans and a new wave of low-income students have pushed the average debt burden of college graduates higher as more students from all income groups borrow more - in some cases a lot more - to finance their undergraduate educations. But lower interest rates and higher salaries are taking some of the bite out of borrowing more. See story from USA Today
More cash-strapped than ever, American school leaders say they are fighting an uphill battle against stifling bureaucracy and a torrent of local, state and federal government mandates. The study strongly suggests that school leaders were working hard to raise academic standards and strengthen accountability even before No Child Left Behind. See press release from Public Agenda
President Bush proposed extending federal testing and accountability requirements to the nation's high schools, which for decades have been plagued by troubling dropout rates and flagging achievement levels. See story from Washington Post
Two days before Christmas, the Bush administration announced it was revising the formulas for its Pell Grants - the federal government's primary aid vehicle for America's neediest college students - in a way that may leave 1.3 million students receiving a smaller amount, and 90,000 off the rolls altogether. See story from Christian Science Monitor Subsequently President Bush proposed an increase in the government Pell Grants that help lower-income students afford higher education but said he would shave the cost out of a federal student loan program that also provides college aid. See story from Associated Press
As the latest report cards on schools and districts trickle out, they're giving the public a snapshot not only of the nation's education system but also of the successes and failures of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), President Bush's landmark 2001 education law. So far this year, the results have been better than many critics expected: Student achievement is up, and the lists of schools on state watch lists because of poor academic performance are getting shorter in nearly every state. See story from Christian Science Monitor
Quantitative measures, the controversial linchpin of the Bush administration's approach to improving education, appear to have exposed performance problems with a favored alternative to public schools: the charter school. A New York Times report Tuesday of 2003 Department of Education statistics shows that charter-school students across the country are behind their public-school counterparts by about six months. See story from Christian Science Monitor
The jury is still out as to whether the various forms of "school choice" are strengthening our primary education system. See story from Christian Science Monitor
While measuring is a useful tool, it's open to interpretation. Right on the heels of the Times story came a response by two researchers at the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University, poking holes in the data. The researchers pointed out, for instance, that there is no statistically significant difference between charter and public students when compared by race, specifically African- Americans and Hispanics. That's important because charters usually aim to help disadvantaged kids, often minorities. The researchers also said nearly a third of the nation's charters were less than two years old when the data were collected. Charters typically experience problems at the start- up phase. See story from Christian Science Monitor
The average national ACT composite score increased in 2004 for the first time in seven years. At the same time, the ACT results-a national indicator of student readiness for college-reveal that an alarming number of graduating high school seniors continue to be unprepared for college science and math courses. See news release from ACT
Americans expect public schools to be more accountable for student progress, but oppose concrete steps in a new federal law to punish or even identify schools that fail to meet that goal. See story from Christian Science Monitor
What students pay on average for tuition at public universities has fallen by nearly one-third since 1998, thanks to new federal tax breaks and a massive increase in state and federal grants to most students and their families USA Today
At prestigious universities around the country, from flagship state colleges to the Ivy League, more students from upper-income families are edging out those from the middle class, according to university data. See story from New York Times
By defining the good school as one that proves all students are learning, the No Child Left Behind Act is already reshaping US education in controversial ways. Critics argue that the requirements don't come with enough new money to pay for them and that the new focus on the worst-off kids means the gifted children are now being left behind. The law is prompting some states - which must each create their own tests - to game the system by setting low standards. See story from Christian Science Monitor
2003 will go down as the year when schools got busy implementing President Bush's far-reaching No Child Left Behind education reform law, even as the nation's largest teachers union dug in and resisted the law. See story from USA Today
The admission selection process and the cost of college were the national issues dominated higher education in 2003, and both are likely to remain prominent in 2004. See story from USA Today
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