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The Olympics of education

posted by Lewis

This week the results were announced for the Olympics of education. As they have for many years now, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan took home the medals. The contest was the quadrennial match of brainpower called the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, known fondly as the Timss, a worldwide measure of schoolchildren’s achievements, coordinated by Boston College and the non-profit International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement.

In both the Timss and the other gold standard international test, the Pisa - the Programme for International Student Assessment, an OECD test of 15-year-olds’ knowledge of maths, reading and science given every three years since 2000 - the same countries seem to win again and again. Why do these rankings matter? Because they can predict the future. The subjects they measure are essential in today’s highly engineered, technologically driven world, where countries and individuals compete for prizes as dear as political self-determination, prosperity and jobs.

Posted on December 11th, 2008 | Comments Off

Top 10 Education Blogs Identified in New Education Next Analysis

posted by Lewis

STANFORD, Calif., Dec 09, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) — The Internet is evening out the playing field for education commentators and analysts by making the traditional trappings of power and influence obsolete, writes Michael J. Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in his new analysis of education web logs (blogs) published in Education Next.

Currently, there are as many as 30,000 education blogs on the Internet. Some focus on policy, others on practice; many link and comment on daily newspaper articles and other blog posts and provide a forum for other users to do the same. The bloggers come from a variety of backgrounds and the influence of their blogs does not seem tied to any particular set of credentials. For example, the nation’s top education policy blogger, Eduwonkette, was, until recently, anonymous: Jennifer Jennings, a graduate student in sociology at Columbia University, managed to overtake Eduwonk’s Andrew Rotherham in the top spot, even though her competitor is a former Clinton White House aide and cofounder of a major Washington education think tank.

In his analysis for Education Next, Petrilli ranked the top ten education blogs and the top ten education policy blogs by their technorati score as of August 2008, which provides an indicator of the “authority” given to a site by other bloggers by identifying the number of unique blogs that have linked to that blog within the past 180 days as measured by technorati.com.

In terms of political leaning, education policy blogs are balanced between Left and Right, Petrilli says. Eduwonk and the Quick and the Ed write from the center-left; Intercepts, Flypaper, and Jay P. Greene come from the center-right. None of the major education interest groups have broken into the upper ranks of the education blogosphere: The United Federation of Teachers, the American Federation of Teachers, and the National School Boards Association all have active blogs, but none makes the top 10 lists.

Top 10 Education Blogs     Author(s)                                               Technorati Score
1. Weblogg-ed              Will Richardson, author, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts         850
2. Joanne Jacobs           Joanne Jacobs, former reporter & columnist              788
3. Cool Cat Teacher        Vicki Davis, teacher, Westwood Schools, Georgia         531
4. 2c Worth                David Warlick, The Landmark Project, former teacher     529
5. Speed of Creativity     Wesley Fryer, Oklahoma Heritage Association             462
6. Dangerously Irrelevant  Dr. Scott McLeod, Iowa State University                 443
7. Edu.blogs               Ewan McIntosh, teacher, Edinburgh, Scotland             406
8. Fischbowl               Karl Fisch, teacher, Arapahoe High School, Colorado     323
9. Students 2.0            K-12 students from around the world                     266
10. The Thinking Stick     Jeff Utecht, tech specialist, Shanghai American School  243

Top 10 Education Policy Blogs  Author(s)                                                 Technorati Score
1. Eduwonkette                 Jennifer Jennings, doctoral student, Columbia University  179
2. Eduwonk                     Andrew Rotherham, Education Sector                        165
3. The Education Wonks         Anonymous (EdWonk, TeacherWonk, and TeenWonk)             129
4. The Quick and the Ed        Kevin Carey and others, Education Sector                  103
5. Intercepts                  Mike Antonucci, Education Intelligence Agency             89
6. Matthew Tabor               Matthew Tabor, college admissions counselor               82
7. Schools Matter              Jim Horn, PhD (affiliation unknown)                       82
8. This Week In Education      Alexander Russo, former Capitol Hill staffer              82
9. Flypaper                    Education Gadfly team, Thomas B. Fordham Institute        79
10. Jay P. Greene              Jay P. Greene, University of Arkansas                     76

For more about the wild world of education blogging, read “Linky Love, Snark Attacks, and Fierce Debates about Teacher Quality: A Peek Inside the Education Blogosphere” online at www.EducationNext.org.

Michael J. Petrilli is vice president for national programs and policy at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, and an executive editor of Education Next.

Education Next is a scholarly journal published by the Hoover Institution that is committed to looking at hard facts about school reform. Other sponsoring institutions are the Harvard Program on Education Policy and Governance and the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation.

SOURCE: Hoover Institution, Stanford University

Posted on December 9th, 2008 | No Comments »

Grants from Gates, on College Completion

posted by Lewis

Report:

In framing the grant awards in a news release, the foundation stipulated a “commitment to using data to shape its investments by building on the most promising programs and policies already under way, catalyzing innovation in areas where there has been limited success, and, over the longer term, bringing the most promising practices to scale.”

As one example, MDRC, a research-oriented nonprofit organization, received $13 million over four years to expand its Performance-Based Scholarship Demonstration. More than 4,500 low-income students in four states will receive the scholarships, which are tied to certain performance outcomes (like maintaining a minimum grade point average), and are intended to supplement state and federal aid. The initiative grew out of positive findings from a similar project at two Louisiana community colleges, which involved $1,000 per semester grants and was notable in part for its random selection of students to receive the scholarships — a method that will be repeated.

Posted on December 9th, 2008 | No Comments »

Gates Foundation to study ‘cash for grades’

posted by Lewis

From the Los Angeles Times:

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is throwing its weight behind the trend to offer “cash for grades” to keep low-income students in college, despite protests from some quarters that such incentive payments amount to little more than bribery.

The foundation will devote $13 million to study whether paying low-income college students between $1,000 to $4,000 to stay on track is effective, officials said today. The cash payments themselves will be made by programs in California and several other states.

Posted on December 9th, 2008 | No Comments »

Gates Grants Aim to Help Low-Income Students Finish College

posted by Lewis

Sara Rimer writes:

With concerns growing that the recession will make it even harder for low-income students to remain in college, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on Monday announced nearly $70 million in grants as part of an ambitious initiative: to double the number of low-income students who earn a college degree or vocational credential by age 26.

The foundation hopes to encourage other nonprofits, religious organizations and the federal government to join its mission to help low-income students get the education required for steady employment in higher paying jobs, said Hilary Pennington, who will direct the Gates Foundation’s postsecondary effort.

Posted on December 9th, 2008 | No Comments »

Obama education pick sparks conflict

posted by Lewis

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Barack Obama has not signaled what he will do to fix the country’s failing schools, but his choice of education secretary will say a lot about the policies he may pursue.

Debate is simmering among Democrats over whom Obama should name.

Teachers’ unions, an influential segment of the party base, want an advocate for their members, someone like Obama adviser Linda Darling-Hammond, a Stanford University professor, or Inez Tenenbaum, the former state schools chief in South Carolina.

Reform advocates want someone like New York schools chancellor Joel Klein, who wants teachers and schools held accountable for the performance of students.

Posted on December 9th, 2008 | No Comments »

Online Education, Distance Learning Scholarship Goes to Student at Dakota State University Online

posted by Lewis

ESSEX JUNCTION, Vt., Dec 03, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — Shawna Sweeney, of Waukon, Iowa, has been selected one of GetEducated.com’s Excellence in Online Education and Distance Learning scholarship winners.

Sweeney, a working mother of two young boys, is enrolled with Dakota State University’s Online Master of Science in Information Systems Management.

“When I decided to continue my education the main item I had to consider was cost,” says Sweeney.

GetEducated.com’s online college rankings reveal Sweeney chose wisely. Dakota State’s distance learning Masters in Information Systems has been ranked a Best Buy by GetEducated.com’s research team several years running.

Posted on December 4th, 2008 | No Comments »

Open Enrollment Pays Off, Say Grawemeyer Education Award Winners

posted by Lewis

LOUISVILLE, Ky., Dec 03, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ — Non-traditional students who attend college through open enrollment generally do well and their success carries forward to the next generation, say two scholars who have won the 2009 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Education.

Paul Attewell and David Lavin, both sociology professors at City University of New York’s Graduate Center, earned the prize for the ideas set forth in their 2007 book, “Passing the Torch: Does Higher Education for the Disadvantaged Pay Off Across the Generations?”

They were selected for the prize from among 14 nominations worldwide.

Attewell and Lavin tracked nearly 2,000 disadvantaged women who entered CUNY through open enrollment in the early 1970s. When they interviewed the women three decades later, they found more than 70 percent had graduated and boosted their income, and that their children also had better educational success.

Data from a U.S. Department of Labor study tracking the effects of college attendance on several thousand women from 1979 to 1999 supported their findings.

Study participants were selected to equally represent whites, blacks and Hispanics. The researchers calculated that the annual dollar benefit to each woman averaged about $9,700 for whites, $5,000 for blacks and $7,900 for Hispanics.

“The study shows that opening college to disadvantaged students doesn’t lessen the value of degrees or hurt institutions of higher education as some have feared,” said Bill Bush, a UofL professor of education who directs the award. “In fact, it shows quite the opposite.”

Posted on December 4th, 2008 | No Comments »

California country’s most affordable higher education option

posted by Lewis

Report:

California’s vast system of inexpensive community colleges has earned the state the top ranking — and the only passing grade in the nation — in a new analysis of America’s college affordability.

But that distinction may be short lived as the state proposes tuition increases at its system of 109 community colleges and eyes budget cuts at its four-year universities. Until then, the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education concludes that California schools’ easy access is unique across the country.

“Children from even the poorest family can afford to attend,” said Joni Finney, vice president of the Center. “We found that no other state has a such a public policy in place.”

Posted on December 4th, 2008 | No Comments »

U.S. Lags In Providing College Access, Study Finds

posted by Lewis

Report:

During the past two decades, some other nations have made the kind of effort to improve access to higher education that the United States undertook in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, said Patrick Callan, president of the research group.

In the United States, by contrast, college costs keep rising; more students are dropping out of high school; and large gaps remain in the success rates of students of different races, incomes and states. “We’re one of the few countries where our older population is better educated than the younger population,” Callan said.

The study gives a failing grade for college affordability to every state but California, which received a C because of the relatively low cost of its community colleges.

Posted on December 3rd, 2008 | No Comments »

MINDsprinting Blog
Free Online Tutoring

The Olympics of education

Top 10 Education Blogs Identified in New Education Next Analysis

Grants from Gates, on College Completion

Gates Foundation to study ‘cash for grades’

Gates Grants Aim to Help Low-Income Students Finish College

Obama education pick sparks conflict

Online Education, Distance Learning Scholarship Goes to Student at Dakota State University Online

Open Enrollment Pays Off, Say Grawemeyer Education Award Winners

California country’s most affordable higher education option

U.S. Lags In Providing College Access, Study Finds

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