Panel Urges Reduced Use of College-Admission Tests

As legions of high school students prepare to spend long Saturday mornings this fall taking the SAT or ACT college-entrance tests, a national commission is recommending that colleges and universities should consider dropping the tests as a requirement for college entry.

Read full article EducationWeek

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Schools Issue Laptops to Eighth Graders

It's Christmas this week for eighth graders in Nebraska and New Mexico. According to local news reports, several school districts in both states have issued personal laptops to every eighth grader to use at school and at home this coming school year. I knew these one-laptop-per-student programs were common at the high school level. But now that middle schools are issuing laptops to eighth graders, people are naturally questioning the wisdom of the idea.

Read full article USNews

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Bonuses Given at Schools That Failed

Efforts by the Bloomberg administration to add accountability to the public school system have included moving quickly to shut down schools deemed beyond repair, and rewarding those that make significant progress on standardized tests. Those initiatives seemed to collide last week, when teachers and principals at five of the failed schools earned cash bonuses for their successes.

Read full article NYTimes

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U.S. community colleges at a 'turning point'

By Betty Young's count, it's been nearly three years since Jay Leno has made any cracks at the expense of community colleges. She should know: In the fall of 2005, after he had taken what she thought was a string of cheap shots, Young rode her Harley-Davidson more than halfway across the country to his Tonight Show studios and asked him to lay off.

He made no promises, but Young, a graduate and longtime president of community colleges, considers Leno's silence on the subject these days a victory. Perhaps more important, her public relations trek served as a sort of rallying cry for community college leaders nationwide. Tired of their image as the Rodney Dangerfields of higher education, they have become increasingly vocal in their demand for respect. Nothing less than the nation's economic future is at stake, they argue.

Read Article USA Today

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McCain - Obama: Debate about education

In TV Ads on School Issues, Campaigns Reach Back Years to Question the Opposition
By David J. Hoff

The campaigns of Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama engaged in a sharp and testy exchange on education last week, making the topic the center of debate for the first time since the long race for the presidency began.

Read full article EducationWeek

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Don't let college bankrupt you

For all the scare stories this spring about how hard it was going to be for students to get loans, the loan season is ending quietly with money secured. But I have a different take on this story. Why are we glad that students and parents find it so easy to get further into hock? Students who borrow are graduating with a median $20,000 in education debt that schools know about (that doesn't count direct loans from other places where students borrow, like banks). Kids have no idea how tough it could be to repay or what might happen if they can't (for some horror stories, see studentloanjustice.org). Families starting to think about college should troll for places they can afford, while borrowing as little money as possible.

Read full article NewsWeek

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