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Education News

Education News:
July 24, 2008

Every week we scour the headlines from around the nation and prepare brief executive summaries of the top education stories.

Interested in last week's headlines or the week before that? View our archive section. Also view our education resources, below, to keep up to date about the latest news and trends in education and the teaching community.

This Week in Education

Home Visits Aim to Keep Students from Floundering in High School
(Source: The Sacramento Bee, 7/24/08): Data released last week by the California Department of Education showed that nearly one in four high school students dropped out in the 2006-2007 school year. An effort begun in 1998 by the Sacramento City Unified School District, its teachers union and Sacramento Area Congregations Together, brings home visits to students transitioning from eighth to ninth grades in attempt to combat this abysmal statistic. The Parent-Teacher Home Visit Project has since evolved into a nonprofit organization that now advises other school districts across the country who wish to implement a similar program. The ultimate goal is to build a stronger relationship with struggling students and their families so that they may increase their chances at graduating.

First Lady Defends Criticized ‘No Child’ Tests
(Source: USA Today, 7/23/08): In response to growing criticism from presumptive presidential candidates, Senators Barack Obama and John McCain, first lady Laura Bush defended the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act in an interview last week. She said that the main component of the law, the extensive standardized testing, is extremely necessary to diagnose the problems of failing schools, comparing the education system to a sick patient. She also criticized the Democratic Congress, which has effectively destroyed the Reading First program because they have found that the program is fraught with internal problems. Lastly, Mrs. Bush said that she does not often hear of teachers complaining about the federal mandates of NCLB and that most of the teachers she comes into contact with are extremely pleased with their career choice.

Doubt Lingers on Pre-K-8 Strategy
(Source: The Washington Post, 7/22/08): According to a recent study, students enrolled in pre-K-8 schools score higher on standardized tests than their peers in K-7 schools or eighth-ninth grade junior high schools. In response to this study, five schools in the District of Columbia, at the cost of $58 million, are adding another year onto their K-7 programs. This change is also intended to help eliminate the social jump required of students going from elementary school into junior high school. Some are opposed to this decision because it seems that most of the students who will benefit from the change will be from higher income households. Some also argue that the organization of grade levels is not nearly as important as the quality of the schools overall.

With No Frills or Tuition, a College Draws Notice
(Source: The New York Times, 7/21/08): Berea College in Kentucky was originally founded 150 years ago to educate freed slaves and “poor white mountaineers,” but today it enrolls low-income students and does not charge any tuition. The College operates at a much lower cost than other colleges of similar size. They rely on food from the college farm, handmade furniture and tools from the college crafts workshops, and every student holds an on-campus job. The mission of Berea and its overall effectiveness and is just one side of a discussion about the use or, rather, misuse of many university endowments. Some argue that colleges are tax-exempt and, therefore, should be responsible to the public and offer services that are affordable to any student. However, many universities in recent years have significantly increased the number of scholarships and grants that low- and middle-income students can receive, showing a greater effort to make higher education more accessible.

The Next Kind of Integration
(Source: The New York Times, 7/20/08): In June 2007, the Supreme Court ruled against the Seattle and Louisville, KY school districts in their efforts to racially integrate their schools in order to close the achievement gap and facilitate closer relations among different races. However, the ruling has also initiated a wider discussion about the exact goals of integration and whether it should be more focused on socio-economic status rather than race. Some studies have shown that the performance of poor students in schools that have a majority of low-income students is lower than the performance of poor students in schools that have a majority of middle-income students. This sheds a new light on the achievement gap debate, and focuses the attention away from a white-black dichotomy to a rich-poor dichotomy instead. In response to the Supreme Court ruling and the recent findings of these studies, some school districts, including Des Moines, IA; Burlington, VT; Omaha, NE; and Beaumont, TX, are implementing a class-based integration system.

Does New SAT Help With Admissions Decisions?
(Source: The Christian Science Monitor, 7/18/08): When the College Board added a writing component to the SAT in 2005, the aim was to give colleges a better predictor of future student performance. Findings from a recent study by the College Board supported this initial goal, but similar studies by colleges have showed conflicting results. Some critics claim that the new SAT is just a longer, more expensive version of the old test. In addition, many colleges have eliminated the SAT from their admissions requirements in order to boost applications from low-income students who have been found to have a large disadvantage when it comes to SAT preparation. Other universities argue, however, that the writing section of the SAT is more similar to the subject-based SAT II tests and a good indicator of first-year performance, graduation rates, GPAs, and more.

Textbooks, Free and Illegal, Online
(Source: The Boston Globe, 7/18/08): Due to the often exorbitant prices of college textbooks, many students are downloading pirated versions for free. Websites such as BitTorrent and Scribd.com have been useful for students in this regard, although Scribd.com claims that it removes illegally posted books as soon as it receives a complaint from the publisher. In response to this growing issue, some publishing companies have begun efforts to offer legal online versions of textbooks at a greatly reduced price or paperback versions that can be bought more cheaply. None of the publishing companies have yet to take legal action against users of these illegal e-books.

Popular Education Journals and Magazines

Following are a few of the most popular education journals and magazines. For a complete listing of journals and magazines, see one of the directories listed below.

Directories of Education Journals and Magazines

Sites offering directories of hundreds of journals and magazines (both electronic and printed) related to education. Many of the resources contained in the directories below are free.