January 15, 2013

National News

Education Week
Schools aim to craft environment for learning
The 2013 edition of Education Week’s Quality Counts report takes aim at an issue with emotional as well as policy implications: the impact of a school’s social and disciplinary environment on students’ ability to learn, and on the teachers and administrators tasked with guiding them. A growing consensus also recognizes that the elements that make up school climate play a crucial part in laying the groundwork for academic success.

Wall Street Journal
High school graduation rate moves up
America’s high school graduation rate, which stagnated for the last three decades of the 20th century, is now climbing, according to a new, comprehensive look at the key education gauge by Harvard University economist Richard Murnane. Even with the recent rise in the graduation rate, about one in five American men between 20 and 24 doesn’t have a conventional high school diploma, a significant barrier to getting a decent-paying job or going on to college. About one in seven women lack a diploma.

Inside Higher Ed
Connecticut’s reorganization 
In 2011, Governor Dannel Malloy floated the idea of consolidating Connecticut’s community college system and its state university system. The ideas were bold. The execution was quick. The result has left many people—faculty members, administrators, students, legislators, taxpayers—skeptical about the effectiveness, if not the underlying strategy, of Connecticut’s higher education reorganization.

The pupil cliff 
The country likely peaked at about 3.4 million high school graduates in 2011 and will see a modest decline over the next few years, according to a Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education report. While the total number of white students has declined, there has been a huge increase in the number of Hispanic and Asian-American/Pacific Islander students. The demographic change will force states and institutions to rethink how they serve new segments of the population.

Related Topics: Graduation Rate