Graduation Rates Over Time: Private Research Institutions – Students – The Chronicle of Higher Education

We compare here the graduation rates at four-year colleges for the six years ending in 2008 with the rates for the six years ending in 2003.

This is showing the six year graduation rate for four year colleges. This now the standard for evaluation purposes. It’s not for financial aid or scholarship purposes, though. So what is Harvard’s four year rate? According to the CollegeResults.org website, it’s 87.8% in 2008. Now this is still a pretty good rate but it does place them at the 17th spot in rankings. I know, all those darn engineers taking extra time to graduate. Right.

Shouldn’t there be truth in advertising?

The Washington Monthly

The assumption is based on an idea — Congress operates by majority rule — that should be true but isn’t. For much of the country, procedures like “filibusters,” “secret holds,” and “cloture votes” are completely foreign. Indeed, it’s very likely this contributes to public disgust with Congress — when majorities can’t even vote on their own priorities, a lot of folks throw up their arms in frustration and assume the Democratic majority is incompetent. Pointing to procedural abuses — which are the actual heart of the problem — only sounds like excuses to those who have little patience for legislative tactics.

This, in turn, creates an added motivation for Republicans to keep up their obstructionism.

What really bothers me is that the founder of an organization that seems to lobby for the group is unaware of how the senate actually works.

Valerie vs. Jay on Teach for America, KIPP, etc.

Ultimately, I think I have to side with Jay Mathews on this one. I think Valerie Strauss misses the point. Teach for America isn’t saying that you need “elites” in public schools to be good teachers. It’s about getting the “elites” to be aware of and even value the role of public school teachers. I see it kind of like the argument that if we had a universal draft, maybe our political leaders wouldn’t be so eager to send troops into combat, or at the very least, be willing to provide them with the necessary equipment to do the job and the appropriate services for when they come home.

A federal lawsuit accuses a suburban Philadelphia school district of spying on students at home through school-issued laptop webcams.

I’m trying to envision this. How did it happen that the school issued laptops, someone put software on them that allowed the school to access the camera remotely, let other know it can be done, and nobody say this might not be a good idea? Or maybe even, do we have policies in place to ensure it’s not abused–didn’t they think that some student might hack the system and use it? Or at the very least, will our insurance cover us if we get caught?

A task force on Tuesday recommended requiring students at the University of Texas to complete their bachelor’s degrees in 10 semesters or five years

So do you think that means that the university will start reporting it’s four year (not six year) graduation rate which is 48%? Oh wait, that’s the student’s fault as well, you know, all those top 10 percent graduates who are just enjoying paying for college so much that they won’t graduate and mess up the school’s stats.

“There are tons of really great schools with really smart kids applying for the same jobs,” said Jacob Loewenstein, a junior from Lawrence, N.Y., who is majoring in German. “People intuitively take a G.P.A. to be a representation of your academic ability and act accordingly. The assumption that a recruiter who is screening applications is going to treat a Princeton student differently based on a letter is naïve.”

So why did you apply to Princeton as opposed to some lesser known state school with a reputation for easy A’s? How pathetic! Get real, you applied because of the name. If you applied because of the rigor of the program, you wouldn’t be whining now. Is this the result of the Princeton education? Maybe Princeton should reconsider their admission procedures if this is how their students react in the face of “adversity.”  

But Perry said Texas “reserves the right to decide how we educate our children and not surrender that control to the federal bureaucracy.”

Perry’s objections seem to center on the fact that the grant rules give preference to states that sign on to a push for national curriculum standards. Perry and Scott have been critical of the Common Core Standards Initiative, a state-led effort coordinated by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers with support from the Department of Education. Texas and Alaska are the only two states that have not joined the initiative.

So the grant rules giver “preference” to those who sign on for national standards–why not apply anyway and see what happens? And isn’t “local control” the basis of Texas public education? So why isn’t the state supporting districts (if any) that are implementing such standards on their own?

Are there potential negative consequences of national standards? Of course there are. But national standards or no, Texans, parents, students, and citizens, deserve to know why over 80 percent of students in the more desirable high schools are considered “college ready” but only half of them can meet the minimum SAT/ACT scores required by state colleges to enroll in schools without remediation.

The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal reported that Leach locked sophomore receiver Adam James in a closet because he thought the player was faking a concussion.

I’m really having problems envisioning the scene.  Not the getting the kid into the closet part but what the other adults at the scene were doing. Did anyone suggest that this might not be the best way to handle the situation or were they all thinking, “damn, I’m going to use this technique once I’m head coach.” Or maybe they were the sergeant in Hogan’s Heroes “I see nothing!” More likely, it was “the idiot did it this time, that’s Craig James’ son, hmmm, maybe I’ll have a shot at his job.” Regardless of which thoughts were actually present at the time, I think this shows that Leach has some serious management issues.

Kerrville Independent School District officially supports the six plaintiff districts in claiming that commissioner Robert Scott is overreaching in his interpretation of a recently enacted law against minimum grades.

Minimum grading policies are the practice of giving failing students at least 50 percent on report cards regardless of whether a student’s cumulative work on individual assignments actually justifies a lower percentage.

Such a policy currently exists at KISD and more than half of all Texas schools. The KISD policy states teachers must record a 50 for any student scoring below that amount during the first five six-week grading periods.

I understand wanting to make sure that kids are able to succeed at school but maybe the point is to put them in classes that are a better match to their abilities?  And I can see this maybe working for a History or English class but what about math or science? How many kids can actually pass the remaining grading periods if they bombed the first one in Algebra? And how is this policy going to help students pass the year end tests that will soon be administered in high schools?

Maybe this is something that only happens at the elementary school level which would make more sense. In any case, I would like some specific examples and numbers. And the fact that none are provided suggests that neither side really has any reason for supporting/opposing the policy.

Class Struggle – How fashion frustrates school improvement

James P. Comer is one of the most successful school improvement experts in the country, but that doesn’t mean he gets much respect. Policy makers often resist his ideas. Take, for example, the Midwestern elementary school that went from 23rd to first in its district by using the School Development Program created by Comer and his Yale colleagues.

Did the school district leaders celebrate and recommend the program far and wide? No. They appear to have been disturbed by the results. They accused the school of cheating and insisted on a re-test, with local newspapers suggesting scandal. The students did even better the second time, but that did not win Comer’s team any plaudits. The superintendent removed the principal who had done so well with their methods and installed a new staff not trained to use them, bringing the scores back down to where the district leadership apparently thought they should be.

Yeah, the public education system does so much more to ensure a quality education. This isn’t about education, this about brainwashing our children and who gets to do it.

Are there children out there who would do better in public school than being homeschooled? Of course, depending on the public school and the randomly assigned teachers. But I would bet that there is an even larger percentage of children in public school who would be better served by homeschooling.

Tell you what, fix the system for the kids that are already there and then talk to me about regulation.